Driver of the year?

Justin: We appear to have neglected the fact that we havent picked a driver of the year yet. Do we usually do this? I think we should!

Most of the experts have been pretty much putting Vettel, Button and Alonso as the first three in their "best ten drivers of the year" lists.

I watched the F1 Review of 2011 DVD yesterday and have to say that Button's win in Canada stood out for me, as well as Alonso's start in Spain and Webber's outrageous move on Fernando in Belgium....

Vettel has been the best driver in the best car.....Button has been driving better than ever and has outraced Hamilton this year and outscored him......Fernando has more than double the points of Massa and was only 1 point shy of outscoring two guys who had clearly faster cars....as it was he still outscored Hamilton handsomely.

I don't think I can pick between them really...co-blogger it's over to you mate!

Kimi Raikkonen quote available as a ringtone

Phil: It isn't, but if Carlsberg made F1 themed ringtones...or maybe it would be better as an answerphone message.

The world of F1 has gone suddenly quiet, as it always does this time of year. Which leaves us with nothing to talk about except the driver market, and even here there's less than usual, as all the top teams are sticking with the blokes they had last year. There's been a sudden flurry of teams changing their names, so for comedy/nostalgia purposes, I'm going to use the old names. In some cases the very old names.

Stewart ('Red Bull') - Vettel and Webber
McLaren (for it is they) - Button and Hamilton
Ferrari (for it is still they) - Alonso and Massa
Tyrrell ('Mercedes') (you'd forgotten about them, hadn't you? I can feel a Tyrrell tribute coming on) - Rosberg and Schumacher

So no change there. The big surprise as my co-blogger has explained has been

Toleman ('Lotus') (avoiding the obvious multiple Senna legacy cash-in opportunities by sacking his nephew) - Raikkonen and Grosjean

By now we're in the midfield

Jordan ('Force India') - probably di Resta, if they have any sense, and either Sutil or current test driver Hulkenberg
Minardi ('Toro Rosso') - any two of four Red Bull young drivers (Buemi, Alguersuari, Ricciardo and Vergne)
Sauber ('Sauber') - Kobayashi and Perez
Williams (for they are still around) - Maldonado has been confirmed, and the other Williams seat is more or less the only half decent drive still up for grabs, with Senna and Petrov (ditched by the team formerly known as Renault), Sutil (if he doesn't get the Force India drive) and 2011 Williams driver Barrichello fighting over it.

And the 'new' teams, who are now old enough to have 'old' names too

Lotus ('Caterham') - Trulli and Kovalainen
Virgin ('Marussia') - Glock, and new boy Charles Pic replaces Jerome d'Ambrosio
Hispania ('still slow') - de la Rosa is back (again?), and the last remaining seat for whoever doesn't get the drive at Williams.

Hopefully you're slightly less confused than before, although perhaps only slightly. If more confusion is what you're after, then know that ex-Tyrrell, ex-Zakspeed, ex-Benetton, ex-Ligier, ex-McLaren, ex-Jordan man (have I missed any out?) Martin Brundle is now also ex-BBC as he will now be commentating for Sky.

Might I say how much I will miss Martin's commentary enhancing my enjoyment of racing - to my mind the only man to come close to the great Murray Walker (metaphorically speaking).

His replacement in the BBC 'drive' is Ben Edwards, who I initially thought was The Stig (that'll be Ben Collins) and then realised I didn't know who he was. Humphreys, Coulthard, Jordan and McKenzie retain their 'drives' while Kravitz is off to Sky.

How many days to FP1 at Melbourne?

Snow antics

Justin: A Renault driver injuring his hand in an off-season, non f1 sports event? Is history repeating?

Not really...Kimi fell off his snowmobile over this weekend and got away with spraining his wrist apparently.

Wouldn't be surprised if he entered the race under the name James Hunt....good ol Kimi!

What a load of rubbish

Justin: I texted my co-blogger with the news earlier. The news to which I refer is that Renault, soon to be Lotus, have re-hired Romain Grosjean for 2012.

As my co-blogger pointed out, this is the guy who is known only for being better than Piquet Jr, which doesnt say a lot!

Grosjean replaced Piquet midway through 2009 and was pretty shit. Ok, the car wasn't great, but he did absolutely nothing of any worth to note. He was then dumped back into GP2 for two further years, which he did win in 2011.

Bruno Senna, on the other hand, has done plenty of good things after being dumped into the car mid-season this year. The guy echoed shades of his Uncle when he drove superbly in qualy at Spa in the wet, for one. He has been consistently faster than Petrov too, overall.

It makes me sad frankly. Where is the passion and desire? I want to see what Bruno has really got - put him in a half decent car for a full season please! Renault and the fans have truly lost out on finding out what he is really made of.

Now we have Sutil, Senna, Petrov and Rubens all apparently dicing for the last seat at Williams. What an undignified end for three of them.....it's either that, HRT or dont be in F1.

Kimi, F1 news and other things

Justin: Ah...Kimi....what great memories we have of you and your classic soundbites. My co-blogger made me chuckle once again by sharing the legendary "I was having a shit" moment. Somewhat poetic too from my colleague, given, as he said, Brundle is leaving and Kimi is coming back.

I had a root around on youtube for other classic Kimi moments and found two gems! Small children and interviewers may have their work cut out next season!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMBP1T_jw5w&feature=endscreen&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj7HIpSDaKU&feature=related

Classic stuff!

Brazil Review

The "I Was Having a Blog" live event in HW, for Brazil, went down a storm. It was a good race, but not a great one. Good to see Mark Webber nail a win down and hopefully go into winter and next year with some hope and raised confidence.


News

Kimi coming back to Renault means, in my mind (plus I have heard the rumours) that if Kubica does come back at all, it will be with Ferrari and not Renault. He is out of contract at Renault and a top 4 team has apparently offered him as much testing in an old spec car as he needs once he is ready - so they can also assess if he is ready or not. Massa's days are numbered......if...big if I think...Robert does make it back.

Rubens still has no drive, but the fact that Kimi didnt go to Williams could help him I guess.

I think I can safely speak for my co-blogger as well as myself and say it would be great to see both Rubens and Robert back next year.

Exit Martin Brundle, enter....Kimi Raikkonen

Phil: As Brundle defects from the BBC to Sky, and Raikkonen decides rallying is even more boring than F1, let's relish their finest hour once again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3JWFEK5q88.

The greatest grand prix

Phil: I Was Having a Blog... can exclusively reveal the greatest grand prix ever, in the opinion of today's crop of F1 drivers.

Before each race, the BBC have been asking one driver to name his five favourite grands prix, one of which will then be broadcast on iPlayer. Some have gone for great races of the past, others for personal triumphs of their own. Adding up their votes gives us today's grand prix drivers' favourite race of all time.

Our slightly misshapen podium of races is as follows.

3=. France 1979 (4 votes). Something of a landmark for many reasons. Won by Jean-Pierre Jabouille (who?) in a Renault, victory at the French grand prix went to a French driver in a French car on French tyres. It was also the first time a grand prix had been won by a turbocharged car. But the reason it scored so highly was Jabouille's teammate Rene Arnoux's battle for second place with Gilles Villeneuve. Put it this way, these days the stewards would have sent them both to the naughty corner.

3=. Japan 1989 (4 votes). Alessandro Nannini's only career victory, but again that's probably not why most drivers chose it. The second last race of the 1980s was the absolute apex of the rivalry between Prost and Senna. Some say Senna went for a gap that wasn't there. Others say Prost turned in on him. The stewards followed Prost's point of view and disqualified Senna, who had rejoined the race after the inevitable collision, making Nannini race winner and Prost world champion.

3=. Belgium 2000 (4 votes). Schumacher always says his greatest rival was Mika Hakkinen, and this race features what's been called the greatest overtake ever, by Hakkinen on Schumacher with Ricardo Zonta as the meat in the sandwich. Interestingly, one of the drivers who voted for this race was none other than Michael Schumacher. He does have a heart, after all.

2. Brazil 2008 (6 votes). Surely the only time the world championship has been decided on the last lap on the last race, and surely the only time it ever will be, either. Felipe Massa had to win to be world champion. Lewis Hamilton only had to be fifth. On the last lap, with Massa in the lead and Hamilton sixth, it began to rain. Massa crossed the line, thinking he was world champion. But at the second last corner Hamilton, on intermediate tyres, passed Timo Glock on slicks to take fifth place, and the world championship.

1. Europe 1993 (7 votes). Murray Walker calls it, 'the greatest lap ever driven, by anybody', and he should know - he's watched enough. Senna's first lap in the wet at Donington Park, overtaking Prost, Schumacher, Damon Hill and Karl Wendlinger - fifth to first in one lap - made them all look like schoolboys. Watching it again, if you didn't know what was going to happen, you wouldn't think it was possible. Who said it was a stupid idea to have a race in England in March?

So Senna gets to spray champagne down the back of Massa's and Hakkinen's overalls (I don't think they'd mind) and we get to listen to the European national anthem (Beethoven's Ode to Joy, in case you were wondering). Interestingly this contest also had a nail-biting climax, with the last two on 6 votes each going into the final round, before Jenson Button cast the deciding vote.

Rallying

Phil: I admit, in my younger days I was every bit as much a fan of rallying as I was (and still am) of F1.

But that was in the glory days of Kankunnen, Sainz, McRae and Makkinen, when rallying was on terrestrial TV, and before it became more than a little predictable, with Sebastien Loeb's unbroken run of eight world championships. I haven't watched a rally in nearly a decade, but I searched out BBC Wales' coverage of the Wales Rally GB online.

The rally, the last this WRC season, was actually won by Ford's no 2 Jari-Matti Latvala, in a Fiesta (the new formula restricts engine capacity to 1.6 litres - gone are the days of turbocharged Lancia Deltas and Subaru Imprezas) after all his main rivals, including Loeb, dropped out. Among the retirements was a very familiar name - none other than 2007 F1 champion, Kimi Raikkonen.

Raikkonen, who may be on his way back to F1 after an unimpressive 10th place in this year's championship, featured but briefly in the coverage, a shot of him standing by his 'parked' Citroen DS3 - parked in a ditch on a Welsh forest track with a knackered radiator.

He was holding an A4 piece of laminated card with the word 'OK' in green writing, presumably a safety measure designed to inform later drivers there was no need to stop.

I wonder what the one with brown writing on says?

Lewis love-in

Phil: Just when we thought the season was all over, a Vettel DNF and a Lewis love-in. Who'd have thought it?

For most of this season, Hamilton has seemed unable to do anything right. I've lost count of the number of times he's tangled with Felipe Massa, sometimes at successive race weekends. We speculated that it might be personal issues, or the fact that for the first time in his career he's been consistently outraced by his teammate. Whatever it was, he put his demons to bed yesterday and his second (or third?) race win of the year.

Not only that, but a reconciliation, nay even a love-in, with his old arch-rival Fernando Alonso. Embracing on the podium? 'The greatest driver of his generation' (or something like that)?

Maybe Vettel's puncture robbed us of a titanic scrap for the win, or maybe Vettel would have walked it given four tyres with air in rather than three. But the second half of this season to my mind has been a bit flat. Vettel has been driving within himself and the others, as I've commented before, seem to have the same tussles for the same places - Alonso against Webber, Hamiton against Massa, Schumacher against Rosberg - every race. Don't get me wrong, the first half of the season gave us some classic races - Canada will stay in my mind for a long time - even though the championship was never really in doubt, but now the fizz has well and truly gone out of it, as if each driver knows his part in the play and acts it accordingly.

So we go on to 2012. The top four teams are retaining their current line-ups (which may well mean more of the same next year) but further down the grid things are more fluid. As we've said, three drivers are in the running for the no 1 seat at Williams, of all places: Barrichello, Sutil and potentially a returning Kimi Raikkonen. Let's hope that if and when Frank Williams calls Raikkonen to offer him a drive, he's not too busy having a shit to take the call. Actually, let's hope he is.

There are no less than four drivers in the offing at Renault, who we must remember to call Lotus next year. Rumour has it they'll go for Grosjean, who's famous for not being as crap as Nelson Piquet Jr., and Petrov, who isn't famous for anything. Personally I'd much rather see Bruno Senna, and a fully recovered Robert Kubica.

But then at least one of those options, sadly, is starting to look very unlikely.

A few things...

Justin: My co-blogger and I decided on keeping a dignified silence over the last few weeks. Blogging on the ins and outs of F1 just sort of paled into insignificance with the 2 fatalaties that world motorsport has seen over the period.

F1 is as safe as it has ever been, but that doesn't mean the drivers don't understand that they take a risk everytime they go racing. They all know it and accept it and just hope nothing untoward happens. Vettel touched upon this during the Indian GP weekend. In fact, I must say that the F1 drivers observed an impeccable minutes silence on the grid and the top 3 of Vettel, Button and Alonso gave rather honest and moving tributes in the press conference. Both Button and Alonso looked visibly upset and choked at various points.

Lewis Hamilton even pointed out that if he were to die, he'd rather it be in an f1 car doing what he loves. Thats not a direct quote, but I do recall him saying something along those lines. So, we can at least be thankful that Dan and Marco both died doing what they loved to do. Both knew the very real risks. More than anything, their deaths serve as a reminder to everyone that there are very real risks involved with all motorsports.

Whenever a big accident happens, all fraterneties look to see how they can improve safety. It is clear that something needs to be improved in Indycar. 34 cars on a 1.5 mile oval was just asking for trouble. MotoGP safety cannot really be improved much as once a rider comes off the bike, theres nothing to do but hope nothing nasty happens.

I sort of understand the f1 driver mindset a bit. They get into the car and go as fast as they can, end of. They forget the risks, the negatives once inside the cockpit. When I go go-karting I just drive as fast and hard as I physically can. There have been many times where I've almost put it into the tyre wall, bouncing around a corner onto a main straight, exploring the limits...sort of aware that the wall is a risk, but at the same time not bothered by it in the pursuit of a very fast lap. It's reaching the extreme limit and pushing, pushing.

Anyway, with two races left, the tital is well over and its up to those left to fight it out for 2nd place. My driver of the year would be a choice between the top 3 or probably Paul Di Resta. He has had a fantastic debut year. Vettel is the youngest ever double world champion, Button has outdriven Hamilton all year and is driving the best he has ever drivem whilst Alonso is wringing the neck of the Ferrari to outdrive the third best car on the grid - he is ahead of two better cars in the championship.

Over to you co-blogger.

JB CLASS IN JAPAN

Justin: I know my esteemed colleague will rain down the plaudits on the youngest ever double world champion and rightly so


I will kick off by saying what a thoroughly entertaining race and what a fantastic drive once again by Jenson Button

This guy just gets better and better! With a new multiyear deal in his pocket he seems more at home than ever at Mclaren now


Vettel squeezed him firmly but fairly off the line allowing Lewis to slip through into second


Soon after this Lewis got a puncture which dropped him out of the running for the win and he later had some light contact with Massa yet again

For the majority of the race the top six drivers where never more than a handful of seconds apart and it was just mesmerising watching six of the best drivers out there hammering it around this famous old circuit

Both JB and Alonso jumped Vettel in the pitstops but they all remained rather close throughout especially through the closing laps as Alonso closed on JB whilst Vettel was told to hold station in third for the points needed to wrap up the title (i dont think he listened to start with though!)

Alonso has the third best car out there and to haul it up to a fine second place was a great achievement for him and Ferrari

The most amusing moment of the day had to come in the drivers area just before the go out to the podium where JB and SV talked over their starts

"oh we"re racing like that then" was Buttons reply to Vettel looking somewhat unfussed by his startline move which immediately made the double world champion look a bit silly

Thats the utter class of JB these days and he is rather burying Lewis right now

To Korea we go!

Review part two...

Phil: No need to worry, spelling and grammar are no worse than usual.

Singapore was the 2011 season in microcosm - and I agree completely with my co-blogger that it was good, but not great. Let's recap what happened.

Vettel - superlative.
Button - the only man who showed even a hint he might be able to challenge (and now, the only one left in the title hunt, theoretically at least).
Alonso - fast starting, ultimately disappointed.
Webber - slow starting, balls out overtakes, ultimately frustrated.
Hamilton - controversial.
Massa - pedestrian.

The only difference to the rest of the season being....

Schumacher - shunted himself into the wall this time.

On to 2012...

Singapore review

Justin: Apologies in advance for the poor grammar and possible random caps that may appear on this entry>

My laptop is rubbish and causing a few issues>

First off let me say that I agree with my coblogger about Kimi and Williams>
I for one was blogging a few weeks ago about how I missed Kimis soundbites but I just feel that Kimi and Williams is about the worst fit possible> For gods sake keep Rubens Frank!

Singapore was a good race but not a great one at all

Vettel was in a class of his own and needs now to gain only one point over the rest of the season to take the title and become the youngest ever double world champion

Button brought his McLaren home in second and he was the only driver who looked even vaguely close to taking the fight to Seb

Webber had yet another battle with Alonso that lasted most of the race
Once again the Ferrari was just not on the pace of either Red Bull or Mclaren and Webber pulled a couple of ballsy overtakes on Fernando

In fact you can clearly see the Ferrari is the third best car out there from how they lined up two by two on the grid! Red Bull followed by Mclaren followed by Ferrari followed by Mercedes etc>

Massa and Hamilton had already had a bit of a handbag session in qualifying so I"d imagine Massa"s view was ignited somewhat by that

In my view Hamilton didnt need to do what he did really> He was behind Massa on the outside trying to overtake< lost his braking and locked up piling into Massa"s rear end>

This blighted Massas progress obviously and sent Hamilton back to around eighteenth after his drive through penalty

Now my gripe with Lewis stems partly from his botched overtake (again) but mostly from him coming onto the radio and asking his team (in a manner of words) whether it was really worth bothering to continue going fast>

He shouldnt need motivating at all> full stop frankly! His team told him to keep going and try overtaking as if a safety car happened they could still get good points>

This occurred as it happened but a top driver should never need a motivational speech from his team mid race to go faster and not give up!!!!!!!!

Massa and Lewis had a bit of afters when Massa interrupted Lewis being interviewed later on>

Frankly if I"d have been on the receiving end of a Lewis punt off a few times as Massa has then i"d be furious too>

Hamilton needs to sort himself out quickly as Massa is right>>>>driving like that he can say goodbye to any further championships>

On to Suzuka we go!!

Don't do it, Frank

Phil: My co-blogger texted me tonight with alarming news linking Kimi Raikkonen to a seat at Williams next year.

Now I think I speak for both of us when I say: what would Raikkonen and his salary expectations see in cash-strapped Williams? And what would struggling Williams see in the laziest man in motor sport? Unless of course, Raikkonen brings a mouthwatering sponsorship deal to the table, and is so desperate to get back into F1 that he'll drive for anybody, for nothing? Anyway, my advice to Sir Frank would be: don't you think Rubens would do a much better job?As the following set of statistics should prove beyond reasonable doubt.

Everyone knows that the first man you have to beat in F1 is your teammate - after all, only he has exactly the same machinery as you. Detailed analysis shows that, at the end of the European season, about half the drivers are beating their teammates, and the other half aren't*. Even more detailed analysis shows that relative to their teammates, the drivers who are doing the best are (the percentages are the percentage lead in points over their teammate):

Barrichello 75%
Kobayashi 70%
Alonso 52%
Sutil 50%
Vettel 41%
Alguersuari 19%
Rosberg 7%
Button 5%
Petrov 0% (against Heidfeld, 94% against Senna who has only driven two races)
Hamilton -6%
Schumacher -8%
Buemi -23%
Webber -70%
di Resta -100%
Massa -110%
Perez -238%
Maldonado -300%
Senna -1600%

So there you have it. Barrichello has scored 75% more points than his teammate, and therefore is in principle outperforming his admittedly crap car better than any other driver.

*It's only about half because Petrov has exactly the same number of points as his teammate Heidfeld, who to confuse matters further, isn't his teammate.

Monza

Justin: A solid roundup of the events at Monza there by my esteemed colleague.

I couldn't agree more with him about Jenson Button. Whilst for the second half of last year, Button's first year at Mclaren, Hamilton pretty much blew him away (especially in qualifying), this year has seen JB consistently faster than Hamilton in races. I'd even go as far to say that JB has had more standout "wow, did he really just do that?!" sort of drives....as mentioned by my colleague...Montreal was a masterclass, Spa, even Hungary where he didn't make nearly as many errors as Hamilton.

I watched the F1 forum after the race. It featured Button and Martin Whitmarsh skirting around questions about the finer details of JB's contract talks. He'll definately be at Mclaren next year, and it seems for a few more years after that. You could tell Whitmarsh absolutely loves JB and it seems JB seems equally at home at Mclaren. Rumour has it that his easygoing charm sits well alongside his quest for speed with the mechanics and everyone loves him.

In fact, you could easily say its more JB's team than Hamilton's these days. Let us not forget, that many people said Lewis would blow Button away when JB first moved there, and JB went and won 2 of the first 4 races of 2010!

As much as Button has been driving supremely, Hamilton has been driving quite raggedly all year. Overtakes are sometimes great, but a lot of the time he nerfs others and himself off. Until he stops doing this, he can forget about future world titles.

If JB continues to drive like this for the rest of the year it could prove crucial in gaining further momentum over Lewis for 2012.

My favourite moment of the race at Monza, bullet start by Fernando aside, was the 20 odd lap squabble which saw Lewis stuck behind a rejuvinated Schumi. It was quite a battle, with Schumi pushing the limits like the Schumi of old.

Then Jenson came up and breezed by Lewis as he backed off a weaving Schumi, then within minutes Jenson took Shumi. Thats how ya do it Lewis!

It was amusing to listen to the pre-podium comments by Vettel to Alonso about the pass which saw Vettel forced wide onto the grass. Vettel was smiling and saying "I was on the grass"...Alonso shrugged and replied "yeah".

Later Vettel called it firm but fair, whilst Alonso apologised apparently.

Onto Singapore we go. Let the battle for second commence!

Monza

Phil: I have fond memories of Monza, watching the 2008 race in the wet, standing by the armco on the inside of the entry to the Ascari chicane, where the track cuts underneath the old, banked track. Vettel took his maiden victory that day, and he won again today. It was a good race, but not a great race, and one that he dominated completely. Once he had passed a fast starting Alonso - almost unbelievably, around the outside of Curva Grande - he never looked in danger of not winning.

Button, who passed Alonso, Hamilton and Schumacher to finish second, seems to me to be at the peak of his game. He has consistently outdriven his teammate Hamilton this year, hasn't made the mistakes that Hamilton has, and has performed particularly well at the real drivers' tracks, like Spa, or Montreal in the wet where he drove a really masterful race. I think that technically he is one of the best and most underrated drivers out there.

What else happened today? Bruno Senna, apparently unnoticed by the BBC team, took the first points of his career today with ninth place. And as a Phil who is often mistaken for a Paul, it was refreshing to hear Paul di Resta's race engineer, who ought to know him fairly well by now, call him 'Phil' over the radio.

Vettel is now 112 points ahead of Alonso, and 117 points ahead of both Button and Webber, with six races left. If Vettel wins his third race in a row next time out at Singapore, Button must finish second (again) and Alonso must finish third (again) for either of them to stand even a mathematical chance of taking the title. Put it another way. Vettel could be world champion in a fortnight's time.

Belgium

Justin: I predicted before the race that, wet or dry, it would be a fantastic race. I theorised that if dry then the Ferrari of Alonso would pile forward as they are amongst the very fastest cars in warmer weather. Also, see Button in a much faster car a long way back! If wet, chaos would reign supreme.

What a race it was eh!!

Highlights for me and all F1 fans had to be the absolutely balls out overtake by Webber on Alonso side by side going into, and through, Eau Rouge. It was just insane. As Brundle pointed out, both are expert racers, but even Alonso had to yield on that one as Webber just said "I'm having this!"

Another highlight had to be Schumi coming through the field from last to claim a fantastic 5th on his 20th anniversary. It had looked like the wheel(s) came off his celebrations in quali yesterday, but he drove a fantastic race and even had a late squabble with Nico. The radio announcement to Nico was rather amusing "Ok Nico you are free to race but just be careful with each other". DC then interpreted that as "Michael's coming to get you!" Alas it wasn't much of a fight as Nico was on the harder rubber so Michael had more speed and grip on the soft tyres.

My co-blogger and I were texting throughout and even until very late on we couldnt predict a winner in this race at all. It was mighty interesting as different strategies played out....would Red Bull need one more stop than the rest, just when would Ferrari pit Alonso to change his first set of softs etc etc? In fact, the last I knew, both my colleague and I predicted either JB or FA for the win. Everyone looked strong at different stages and everyone from Vettel to Webber, Alonso to Button looked ripe for a win at some point. Even Lewis looked pretty handy until he shunted Koboyashi. From how it looked, I'd say he just thought he'd passed him when in fact the Sauber had pulled back alongside him and he just didnt look as he moved across to take the line into the corner. Ooopsss.

It has to be said that JB's drive was another mega highlight for me. How many overtakes did he do? Hasn't he done the most in F1 this year now? And people said he was boring compared to Lewis! At one point Jenson pulled a frankly stupendous move at the outside of La Source on a Force India and...Sabuer wasn't it??

From the start Webber got bogged down yet again and went backwards immediately.

It should be noted at this point that Red Bull tried to get a new set of tyres in use for the race, particularly for Vettel's car, as the quali set had blistered badly. It was found that it was the Red Bull car itself, the way it was setup, that had done a lot of the damage.

It was quite amusing seeing Vettel so...animated, talking to the tyre chief from Pirelli on the grid (snigger).

Anyway...from the start...

Rosberg got a flyer and drobe superbly, having to defend very well from Vettel and co.

As is usually the case there was chaos at La Source as people bumped into one another. Someone nerfed Alonso and he had to compensate by driving very wide at the exit. Button got nerfed from behind and a bit of rear wing broke off.

Hamilton also went quickly backwards as the Ferrari's swarmed all over him. At one point, when Alonso took Massa, Lewis also nabbed back 4th(?) from Massa. The Ferrari's, it has to be said, had a magnificent speed through Eau Rouge and you could visibly see how much faster they were than most others through there.

Vettel and Webber pitted quite early on. This left Webber in midfield, but on the harder rubber, which would benefit him later on.

During the safety car period, Vettel pitted whilst Alonso opted to stay out, hoping Vettel's tyre issues would continue. Webber had radio issues and didnt come in during the safety car period.

As it all settled down towards the end it was Vettel, Alonso, Webber, Button. Webber and Button quickly caught and passed Alonso as the Ferrari just doesnt perform well with harder rubber. For some reason, they struggle to get them up to temperature.

So, win number 7 for Vettel. It was amusing reading reports that because Hamilton crashed they say he is now out of the title race. Isn't everyone?!

Webber is the nearest challenger and he is 93 points behind Seb. As my mathmatically gifted colleague pointed out, he only need finish 4th in each race from now on to retain the title.

Onto Monza we go in 2 weeks!

(check out Martin Brundle's column here where he praises Webber somewhat for his overtake on Fernando, and too right frankly)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/14711653.stm

KIMI (this blog is named after him after all!)

Justin: I was reading Autosport yesterday and they had an article on Kimi Raikkonen.

I do rather miss his bluntness!

Quote: At Abu Dhabi (Ferrari sponsorship do on a big stage) in 2009 - "what do you think of this new track Kimi?"

"Well the first corners are quite good but the rest of it is shit."

Utter genius, honest stuff there!

Its a very good article on him if anyone fancies purchasing the magazine this week.

Also out this week is the new F1 Racing magazine which looks at Schumi's 20 year anniversary. There is also a fantastic interview with another, the original, flying finn - Mika!

No F1?!

Justin: A sterling job by my co-blogger on the Hungarian GP. I didn't watch it surrounded by Fernando fans in a Spanish bar as planned, but caught up with it on the BBC Iplayer when I returned from my holiday. What a race, Mclaren boys banging wheels and all!

There isnt much news to roundup really. I'm surprised my co-blogger didn't touch upon the BBC/Sky bastard hybrid deal from hell that will be here next season. Apparently Bernie was keen to keep the sport free to air, as were all the teams...though he happily didn't bother talking for long to ITV and C4 who were both interested in it. Not sure how I really feel about having ten races live on BBC and ten live on sky...I doubt I'll be able to afford sky so will have to settle for cobbled together highlights from the beeb....surely this is a step back to the 80's before coverage became huge?!

Anyway....no F1 for a while now.....bank holiday weekend is when it all kicks off once again at the magical Spa track in Belgium. I saw a rumour that even the owners of Spa were looking at running it once every 2 years in a share agreement with another track as the calendar becomes rather crowded. What a shame if this happens as Spa always conjures up a magical race.

I need a good F1 book to see me through this enforced F1-less period!

On the Button

Phil: Vettel might have qualified on pole, but almost from the off it was clear one of the McLarens would win the race. But for most of the race, it looked like it was going to be the other one.

In changeable conditions, Lewis Hamilton pounced on Vettel when he slid off the track in the early laps, and by the end of the first round of pitstops, when almost the whole field came in to change from inters to slicks, Jenson Button had also passed Vettel.

A few laps later, Nick Heidfeld added to his collection of spectacular exits from races (running over his own front wing in Canada, being shunted into a polystyrene advert by Buemi in Germany) when he had to leap from his burning Renault, which had caught fire by being held up in the pits with no air flow to cool it. There was then a small explosion from the sidepod (the Renault's exhaust comes out in front of the sidepod and is then channelled over and under it for aerodynamic reasons) and the remains of Heidfeld's car finally nearly collected the world champion, Vettel, as it was towed the wrong way up the pit lane.

Paradoxically, this triggered a rush for the pits as the teams feared the safety car would be called out, meaning that almost the entire field had to avoid Heidfeld's car in the pit lane exit. After this second round of pitstops, Hamilton was leading and on the option tyre, which meant he'd have to pit again, and Button was second and on the prime, which meant he probably wouldn't have to pit again.

It looked like a classic case of McLaren hedging their bets, ensuring they'd get a one-two whatever tyre strategy turned out to be right. Then it began to rain again. Hamilton, normally the class of the field in the rain, spun, then forced Paul di Resta on to the grass when rejoining the race. Button took the lead, then lost it to Hamilton on the same lap when he had an incident of his own. Hamilton, the first McLaren to pass the pit lane exit, came in for inters.

Then it stopped raining. Hamilton was now on the wrong tyres, and had to pit again. To really ruin his race, he got a drive through penalty for impeding di Resta after his spin. Button took the win, followed by Vettel who was the only other man on the right strategy. Button and Vettel pitted three times each, but Hamilton had to pit six times, if you include the penalty. He finished fourth, 48s behind Button, having done well to pass Webber and Massa in the dying laps.

It was Jenson's 200th race and came five years after his maiden win at the same track. But because of his two DNFs at Silverstone and the Nurburgring, he's still only 5th in the title chase. Importantly, despite having won only one of the last five races, Vettel finished ahead of his three closest title challengers and is now 85 points clear of his nearest rival, his teammate Webber, with 8 races to go. By my calculations, he need only finish third in each race for the rest of the season to be world champion again.

It might be more Jonathan Legard than Murray Walker, but there's my race summary done.

German GP review

Justin: It was another one of those races. One which whatever I write here cannot put into words just how damn exciting the race was frankly. Ask my friend Ian, who was watching it with me...I jumped up and down getting very excited a fair few times.

Hamilton, Alonso and Webber were a class apart throughout the race, exchanging the lead and running order throughout. Everyone seems to be congratulating Lewis for his overtake around the outside of Alonso, but let us remember he was on warm tyres whereas Alonso had just exited the pits. That aside, the front 3 were all rather glowing about each other afterwards, as lets be honest, barely a second covered all 3 of them for a period early on in the race.

It was amazing to watch these 3 go at it hammer and tongs, tooth and nail...any more of those sayings??? I hope everyone sat back and enjoyed it!

Vettel, as I commented on in my quali review, hadn't looked happy all weekend and 4th place won't have done much to put a smile on that boyish face of his.

This does add considerable fuel to the fire that Vettel doesnt have the class of others when pushing his way through a field...witness his total inability to drive past Massa for the majority of the race, and he ended up having to pass him in the pits.

Onto Hungary we go....I intend to be in a Spanish bar surrounded by Fernando fans watching this one! Co-blogger, I shall leave the Hungarian GP in your capable blogging hands.

Oh yes, and let us not forget Webber giving Alonso a lift back to the pits...utterly classic moment there and reminded everyone of Mansell and Senna all those years ago....oddly enough its a picture I used recently on this very blog!

German GP preview and quali review

Justin: That's twice in a row now that Mark Webber has grabbed pole. One hopes he doesn't let the advantage slip as he did at the start of the British GP.

This race today could be a hell of a battle, with Mark lining up just ahead of Lewis, Seb and Fernando. As usual, it's pretty much the championship players from last year.

Quali was an interesting affair, with q3 starting off with Fernando and Lewis doing pretty similar times, with Lewis just edging ahead. Then Webber stonked in with a lap almost half a second up on that pair. Amazing. Their second runs saw Lewis do a lap just 0.05 seconds slower than webber, with Vettel popping into 3rd ahead of Alonso. Alonso was three tenths down on the pole time, so will have to show the usual better race pace to have any hope of catching those ahead.

Martin Brundle remarked during quali that Vettel was walking around with a "cloudy face" this weekend. For the first time this year, it's not all going his way and he doesnt like it. He knows Webber is much more of a very real threat now as he has gotten to grips (pardon the pun) with the new tyres. Vettel also knows that Alonso has become more of a threat. It's not panic stations at all for Vettel, as lets be clear, all he has to do for the second half of the season is turn up and collect solid points really. But, it's the first time this year he has qualified outside the front row...if we're judging him by his standards alone, that will annoy him surely.

It should be very interesting watching Vettel at the start and throughout the race, given he probably won't be leading from start to finish as usual.

My co-blogger compared Vettel to old Schumi in terms of becoming the guy in a class of his own....well, schumi led a lot from the front too...difference is even I admit Schumi had some beautiful drives through fields of cars to score wins and points finishes. Belgium 95 anyone?? Vettel has never done anything like this, so for me, he isn't the class of the field just yet.

Go Webber....Go Alonso later today.....Hamilton and Vettel to crash into each other at the first corner...woohoo! :-)

Latest from the bbc website from Germany is that its wet, windy and utterly miserable weather....an open race then! (Ferrari struggled big time though in the wet at silverstone).

OUR NIGE!!

Justin: To my co-blogger and f1 fans i ask you all to buy f1 racing magazine this month. It contains a fantastic interview with Nigel Mansell. He talks of Patrese grabbing his balls amongst many other things. What a legend our Nige is!!!

Quick news roundup before the German gp weekend.

Webber has been told that were seb coming up behind webber with a lap to go that he also would have been told to hold station. Incidentally, check out Webbers column on the bbc website!

Not much else to report, other than that its cold and wet all weekend at the ring!

Calm down, dear

Phil: I think we need to have a chat about the Red Bull team orders thing.

In my view it really ought not to be the headline: the headline should be Ferrari's first win since last autumn. Mark Webber having been told not to attempt to overtake his teammate for second place on the last lap of the race was slightly disappointing, as we missed out on what might have been an exciting last lap, but no more than that. Mark is right to try to overtake, he's right to ignore the team the first time, but I think that Red Bull were also right to try to stop him.

I really don't think anyone can condemn Red Bull yesterday and condone Ferrari at Hockenheim last year, for the following reasons.

1. Team orders were illegal then. They are legal now.
2. Massa was told to give up a position to his teammate. Webber was told not to overtake his teammate.
3. The Ferrari incident decided the win. The Red Bull incident decided second place.

Finally, and I don't think it's relevant to the comparison between the two incidents, but Vettel is dominating Webber every bit as much as, and probably more than, Alonso was dominating Massa. That's not a criticism of Webber, because Vettel is in a class of his own: as Martin Brundle said, he's becoming the benchmark, as Schumacher one was. It's almost inconceivable now that Vettel does not retain his world title. He's 80 points ahead of his teammate, and 92 points ahead of his next nearest rival (Alonso). If the ten remaining races this season finished with exactly the same result (Alonso first, Vettel second), he would still beat Alonso by 12 points.

And he's 0.4s faster than the Stig.

Can we put this one to bed now?

Silverstone blog

Justin: Well, I think that was a race that certainly lived up to the history and legend of Silverstone.

There are plenty of talking points, the first of which has to be for me the Mark Webber/ Sebastian Vettel fight that effectively ended on the last lap with the order of "maintain the gap Mark". What we didn't know then of course was that Webber had received 4 or 5 messages over the previous few laps and he of course ignored all of them.

Team orders are no longer illegal of course and time and again in the past these rules have always stirred up mixed emotions for plenty of F1 fans. I won't deny that I stood firm with Ferrari last year when they wanted to get Fernando by Massa to go chase the leader, as he was clearly faster. That day it was confirmed that Massa had effectively become Ferrari number 2. Lets be clear though, Massa was a fair way back in the title race and hadn't looked anywhere near to Alonso's pace all year. In fact in 2010, I think the average qualifying distance between them was half a second. Anyway, I digress. (last year there was nothing between Vettel and Webber, by comparison). Webber hasn't suddenly become that much worse than Vettel, or Vettel that much better, its just Webber cannot seem to manage his tyres quite as well at the moment....anyway...I digress yet again!

We've seen many times in the past instances where people like DC have been asked to hold firm for a 1-2 finish behind team leader Hakkinnen. Again, I am digressing....

What bothers me, disgusts me...about Red Bull is that they sit there and judge other teams on not being able to contain 2 world class drivers, they scoff at teams that openly say to drivers "let him by for whatever reason", they claim to always let their drivers race.....then Horner sits in the BBC f1 forum and claims that if Webber were ahead and Vettel behind then nothing would change.....ok I'll believe that when I see it....Vettel would most likely throw a Lewis-esque tantrum then stuff it up Webber's exhaust like he did in Turkey last year. Vettel would not like one bit being asked not to race Webber if the situation on the last lap of Silverstone were reversed. And it's my honest belief that if Vettel were behind, the "powers that be" would have probably asked Mark to move over.

You have to wonder...I fear for Webber...is this the day he offically becomes number 2? They have already painted him as the bad guy, saying he ignored orders etc etc. Vettel says he doesnt see what the fuss is about....well, get on the other side of it then you will jackass.

Another last lap coming together saw Lewis and Massa chasing each other down and contact happening causing Felipe to run wide on the start/finish straight seeing Lewis finish 4th just ahead.

Make no mistake, the closing laps were absolutely barnstorming, with these two tussles going on.

Elsewhere, Fernando Alonso had all but driven into the distance by this point, 20 seconds down the road. That's his 27th win and puts him level with Jackie Stewart (my colleague should correct me if I'm wrong) in the all time GP winner's list.

People will of course say that Alonso was gifted the win by Vettel's shoddy pitstop...I wouldnt say gifted as Vettel was only 5 seconds ahead as they came into the pits at almost the same time anyway. On softs that were not up to temperature earlier on Fernando struggled and was passed by Lewis, but once his tyres got warmer Fernando pumped in fastest lap after fastest lap, and it was the same for much of the race. The guy just went faster and faster.

Martin Brundle said as much when Fernando went out ahead of Vettel. He'd have loved to have seen Fernando dicing with Vettel and overtaking him as the Ferrari looked the fastest out there all day in dry conditions.

Make no mistake, this was a supreme win by a driver at the top of his game.

Brundle also said it best when, in the forum, he offered to Horner that Red Bull bases itself, its whole image, on edge of the seat extreme sports, so why not let the guys race?

Horner kept coming back to saying "they'd end up in the wall"....based on past experience Vettel has always been the one taking Webber off from behind.

As it is, Vettel didn't prove anything to me at all today......faced with not leading from the front he couldnt race his way to the front at all.

Sound like I have an axe to grind with Red Bull?

I concur with my co-bloggers earlier remarks that Webber is the only guy singing from his hymn sheet. All that BS about the mechanics working hard and wanting 2 cars to finish....I'm sure the seperate teams of mechanics would love to beat the other lot within the team...espcially Webbers guys wanting to beat Vettel. Red Bullshit once again.

Good to see Lewis being nice to his team after a race for once....4th place eh? Deep down he probably isnt happy with that at all, I guess his PR people told him to say something nice for once.

Poor JB....he looked like a dark horse for a win at one point, until some idiot forgot to screw a nut in tight. Whoops.

I'm still fuming...but onto Germany we go.

Not sure about my co-bloggers 7 stop strategy.....

Not bad for a number two driver

Phil: This blogger is a little embarassed about the team's performance at this week's 'rehearsals' for today's British grand prix.

Having been overruled on the team name (we eventually went for Stig's Substitutes), I was unfortunately overruled on the pit strategy as well, and we went for a unique seven-stop strategy that more or less guaranteed that we spent half the race in the pit lane. (The thinking was we had four drivers and needed to do two stints each, because one stint of 20-25 minutes would be 'too tiring'. Bear in mind this was billed as a 'Le Mans style' endurance race, albeit lasting only an hour and a half). We eventually finished 6th out of 8, two laps behind our rivals from another of the firm's offices, who of course did the minimum three pit stops.

Anyway, another man who right now probably thinks he's the only one in his team singing from the same hymn sheet will start the British grand prix from pole in under an hour. His name's Mark Webber.

Tactics?

Justin: This karting fan is enquiring as to how my co-bloggers karting event went.

Surely the need for tactics was kept to a bare minimum?

1. Explore the limits of the kart and track.
2. Drive as fast as you can.
3. Win.

Job done.

In other news, I see Christian Horner has said that Hamilton coming to Red Bull isn't a great idea as having two world class drivers in the same team never goes well. I wonder what Mr Webber thinks about that remark.

Williams Renault are back in business

Phil: Renault having announced they will supply engines to Williams, in addition to the 'works' Renault team, Red Bull and Lotus.

And it's karting tonight. My team and I (sadly not known as 'Rhymes with James Hunt') are meeting for a pre-race discussion of tactics beforehand. I take my co-blogger's comments on the relative merits of Alonso and Coulthard on the chin, although I'd remind him that DC won 13 races and was runner-up to Schumacher in the 2001 title race. I fear I may be before of an Andrea de Crasheris.

We'll know soon enough.

Senna, again

Phil: They let me watch 'Senna', at last. Frankly I'd have to endorse my co-blogger's glowing review. This is one of the best films I've seen in a long time. A cynic would say, being obsessed with F1 like we both are, that I would say that, wouldn't I, but I do think that the narrative is so strong and the archive footage so absolutely superb that even someone with little or no interest in F1 would enjoy it.

Although I knew the central story, of course, Senna's arrival in F1, his rivalry with Prost and finally his death at Imola in 1994, there were plenty of new things to keep me interested. I'd never heard him speak his own language, and I'd never seen Ratzenberger's crash the day before Senna's. While as my co-blogger pointed out, Rubens Barrichello's crash that fateful weekend was spectacularly bad (incidentally, not unlike Allan McNish's crash at Le Mans a few weeks ago), I was particularly shocked by Martin Donnelly's crash at the Spanish grand prix in 1990, which equally I'd never seen before. Donnelly's Lotus seemed to have just disintegrated, leaving him unconscious - dead, for all the film audience knows - and lying in the middle of the track. With the benefit of hindsight we know that Donnelly survived, but 17 years on, as I watched a helicopter take the greatest driver of his generation to the hospital, I felt close to tears.

When I was growing up with F1 in 1980s, I was aware that F1 had a history, and that it had a dark side, with not very many retired F1 drivers. I'd seen footage of the likes of Fangio driving in shirt sleeves with no seatbelt or crash helmet. But there was this conceit, or maybe it was just me, that F1 was so much safer than it had been. Imola shattered all that. Looking back now, and comparing F1 cars and tracks in 1994 to the safety measures that basically saved Sergio Perez's life at Monaco this year, there is no comparison. Cars then seemed to fall apart when they crashed (and often when they didn't crash: 24 finishers out of 24 starters at Valencia last weekend is a record, and a measure of how reliable F1 cars have become).

Anyway, that's quite enough doom and gloom. Let's have some racing. Oh, sorry, it's Valencia, there isn't any. It's Valencia, the weather is fine and Vettel is on pole. Nuff said, I think. An hour and a half of racing at Valencia somehow seemed to take longer than four hours of mainly waiting in the pit lane for it to stop raining at Montreal.

To be fair, this has been a cracking season, and we're always going to get a duff one (at least we were spared Bahrain this year). I say a cracking season, but realistically even Vettel's main rivals admit who is going to be champion this year, as my co-blogger was explaining. With six wins and two second places out of eight races so far this season, Vettel has scored 93% of the possible maximum points. A driver has only ever taken more than 80% of the possible points in a season three times: Schumacher twice in the early 2000s, and Jim Clark in 1963, who, as my dad pointed out, won 7 out of 10 races. In each case, the driver concerned won the title by a country mile. Vettel's lead at slightly under half way through the season is now 77 points over Jenson Button, and as Martin Brundle observed, Vettel could join him in the BBC commentary box for the next three races, and still arrive at Spa at the end of next month leading the championship.

A few weeks ago one of the bookies had him 4-1 on to take the title. That's £1.25 back on a £1 bet. But don't think of it as a bet. Think of it as an investment.

News roundup

Justin: 24 hours after saying his title hopes were finished, Lewis Hamilton stated that "of course he would still fight for the title". Eh? Ok, theres saying something in the heat of emotion after a race, then theres saying something and meaning it then being told be either your management team or your employer to reverse your comments asap! Fernando hasn't retracted his statement about the title being out of reach this year.

Reading this blog by a BBC reporter, Mark Hughes, is bloody interesting...especially where it states "someone who should clearly know said that Hamilton was one unhappy bunny at Mclaren and would leave tomorrow if he could" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/13935658.stm

So, what do we think? Hamilton to Red Bull and Webber to Ferrari? I've heard a lot stranger goings on.

Speaking of Mark, he has been at Wimbledon over the last couple of days.

Jake Humphrey has been in Italy filming with Alonso for the BBC - yey!

Martin Brundle, DC, Jenson and Lewis are all fannying around in the Thames for British motorsport week apparently.

Thats all for now.

Valencia

Justin: Well, it was my fault I guess. I labelled qualifying a bit dull and then said we should hope to look forward to a more interesting race. On one hand, I'm going to say it was a rather dull race compared to others frankly. On the other though, there was plenty of interest up front as Vettel, Alonso and Webber stayed within 3-5 seconds of each other until the final pitstops.

Vettel made an excellent start whilst Lewis dropped from 3rd to 5th, being swamped by the two Ferrari's. Massa backed out of a move on Webber in turn two and Alonso pounced around the outside. From then on it was a story of Vettel maintaining a small advantage whilst Webber, Alonso, Massa and Lewis pushed each other behind him. At one point during the race the first 6 cars were no more than 6 seconds apart. The front 3 eventually dropped the other guys and we then had a battle on our hands, or so we thought.

Webber was second, followed closely by Fernando going for a win in his home race. Alonso pulled a gutsy (as we saw, the DRS zones weren't as beneficial as they normally are on other tracks) overtake on Webber to take second place. Later on though Webber got the place back via the first pit stops. It was as you were after the first stops, with Vettel 3 or 4 seconds ahead of Alonso in 3rd, with Webber between them. Whilst it looked a lot like Webber was catching Vettel at one point, given what Vettel said afterwards ("managing the tyres whilst going as fast as possible") you suspect he was going as fast as he needed to and nothing more. That must be entirely deflating for those trying to beat him frankly, and since the end of the race both Lewis and Fernando have conceeded that the title is all but done for this year.

At the second pit stops Vettel pumped in a series of flying laps to increase his gap to a comfortable 9 seconds. Webber pitted for the hard tyres first hoping they would be better used softs, but they weren't and the others stayed out on softs for a couple more laps, able to do better lap times. Alonso jumped Webber back into second via the second pit stops, by which time Vettel was gone.

Other than the front 3 keeping things intriguing, there wasn't much else going on.

Lewis Hamilton sounded very frustrated in his car. When his engineer mentioned to him that he'd just done two fastest sectors but he needed to manage the tyres and pace himself, Lewis replied "I can't go any slower guys". When they asked him to speed up later on he replied "This is as fast as I can go guys", in a deadpan voice. Who reckons he will leave Mclaren sooner rather than later eh?

Vettel has by far the best car, that much is certain. What is setting him apart from Webber in the same equipment is that he is much more comfortable with the car on the new types of tyres. Webber himself has said he struggles to get much out of the first stint of tyres. Lewis tends to race off and burns his tyres up so he can't go fast later on a stint. The Ferrari's are kind to the tyres but arent on the same pace as Red Bull right now.

The happiest guys in the pitlane aside from Vettel are probably Webber and Alonso, though when I mean happy I mean...satisfied in Webber's case....I doubt he is happy being Red Bull number 2 these days. Webber seemed pretty satisfied yesterday and called it his best race of the year (possibly because he kept within touching distance of Vettel or possibly because he tussled with Alonso throughout the first stint and kept his tyres in better order). Alonso has stated he is driving the best he has ever driven and a second in your home race whilst splitting the fastest cars out there would bring a smile to your face.

So, what of the title race? My co-blogger stated long ago that it was Vettel's title. I now reluctantly agree with him.....I've given up hope, as have Lewis and Fernando it seems. At least I'm in good company.

Onto Silverstone we go.

Team Name.....

Justin: In response to my co-blogger asking me for suggestions for karting team names, I have come up with the following:

Shunt

That is all...keeps up the homage to James Hunt theme, and it still rhymes with stuff...and of course the irony is that with a name like that, you won't have an accident...unless Gavin is around and you pile into him.

Hardly inspiring I know....or is it?!

I can't help but wonder, based on my co-bloggers stag do karting, if his team are getting a DC when really they want a Fernando Alonso...tell them I am available...and I will of course expect everything to revolve around me ;-).

I saw Senna for a second time the other day, not to rub in my co-bloggers sold out woes, and it was even more emotional this time. I was this close to shedding a tear when you see footage of Frank Williams crying at Senna's funeral.

Valencia quali was boring yesterday lets be honest. On their final run's only Webber improved whilst Lewis and Fernando both pitted before completing their last hot laps....how dull. It was probably the least exciting quali this year frankly...Lets hope the race delivers as every other one has this year so far.

Sold out

Phil: Imagine my annoyance yesterday evening on getting to the cinema, only to find a note reading, 'Senna 8pm sold out' stuck to the door. My annoyance only lasted for a moment before turning to something of a warm glow as I realised how many fellow F1 fans there must be in a small town in Gloucestershire, and how much interest in a driver who died before some of them were born. Definitely booking my tickets in advance next time though.

In other news, I've been picked for the karting team at work! We are taking part in a one off karting event, competing against other accounting firms in the region. We've been asked to choose team names. I've been told my suggestion - Rhymes with 'James Hunt' - is inappropriate and would welcome any suggestions my co-blogger might have.

Canadian GP Final Lap Grandstand Finish

Justin: Well, it's been a week since the amazing race in Montreal. We've had some time for it to sink in and reflect upon what was the best race of the year (there have been many of those but usually with a predictable winner...not here though!) and in many ways it gave us the grandstand finish the red flag/ safety car robbed us of in Monaco.

Button's drive from last to first was clinical, classy and brutally quick. At one stage near the end of the race he was over 2 seconds a lap faster than Vettel in the lead.

This race had everything! Hamilton providing overly enthusiastic overtakes, punting Webber into a spin as well as being involved in a 50/50 with Button. Button was taking his racing line, but as other bloggers on the BBC website have stated, you can quite clearly see Button looking into his mirros twice just before the two cars touched. Whether he actually saw Hamilton, who knows. I suspect Jenson genuinely didn't see him. Hamilton was not right alongside Jenson at all, so you could say Jenson was just following his line and thats that frankly.

There were safety car periods galore, not to mention the two hour wait for the rain to calm down a bit. This was the longest F1 GP in history at just over 4 hours!

We had a resurgant Michael Shumacher driving like a man possessed in the 15 or so laps towards the end of the race. He was running in second and he, Webber and Button were chasing each other and actually catching Vettel. I for one was actually dissapointed we didn't see Schumi get a podium....oh how times have changed!

We had Button and Alonso touching as they diced their way through the field. This was a racing incident, with no guy really to blame. Button was not fully alongside Alonso on the inside as they turned into the chicane. With Alonso on the outside going in, he would have had the inside line going out. So Button said "I'm coming through, you decide if we touch or not"...Alonso said "You're not coming through, I have the line, but theres room for two"...and bang, Alonso is out and Button gets a puncture.

Watching those final few laps as Button hunted down Vettel made the hairs on my neck stand on end. What a truly amazing finish to an extraordinary race! 0.9 seconds on the last lap, Button swarming all over the back of Vettel's exhaust, then Vettel spins and Button slides through to take an immense victory and fully deserved one at that too.

I could write about this race for hours, but the best way to review the race and enjoy it to the max isnt to read about it here, but to go and watch it again!

Mark Webber amused me in the press conference, as he usually does with his down the line assessement of the day. He said each of the guys on the podium deserved what they got today. He was basically saying "yeah, amazing drive JB nice one"...but at the same moment you could see Seb thinking "what the fuck? I was leading all the way and I deserve second?" It's the same sort of thing as when Hamilton won when Webber claimed it was good for F1 and the others chasing that someone else had won a race. From a driver view I totally agree, but would Red Bull like this?

Speaking of drivers and teams, there have been a few rumours already about movers and shakers for next year. Red Bull and Mark Webber seem rather unsure of what they are up to. Red Bull claim Webber told them he wants to stay and they are happy to have him. Webber then said we'll wait and see. Hamilton was seen talking to Lewis at Montreal in a 15 minute "private social discussion"...yeah right. If Lewis wants to leave Mclaren, Red Bull is his only viable option.

Onto Valencia we go!

Villeneuve

Phil: Gilles, of course.

I devoured my co-blogger's analysis of Senna, which I personally can't wait to see. I must have watched the trailer online half a dozen times now - is Barrichello's crash the one that's in the trailer, dubbed with Senna saying something like, 'if you're not prepared to take risks, then you're not a racing driver'?

We seem to be delving deeper and deeper into the history of the sport, and this week, a mere quarter of a century after my co-blogger, I got round to watching the 1985 European Grand Prix. It's on BBC F1's excellent classic F1 feature - keep your eyes open for Nigel Mansell's dad...

This week's classic F1 features Paul di Resta's top 5 favourite races, and as he's barely driven 5 grands prix in his career he's naturally picked some old stuff. The one they've gone with, as we are going to the circuit that bears his name, is one of Gilles Villeneuve's classic drives, the 1979 French Grand Prix.

And it's raining in Montreal.

Senna

Justin: I'll be quite honest. When Senna was alive I probably wasn't his biggest fan. He played the part of pantomime villain in my house where "Our Nige" was hero worshipped through the 80's and into the 90's. Plus, when I first started watching F1 I was only 6 in 1985, so by the time Senna passed in 94 I was probably developing more of an admiration for him.

It's only after something disappears that you start to realise what you are missing. That's what I have done with Senna as I have plenty of books about him and I have his title years on video, as well as the 1993 review with THAT first lap at Donnington in the wet....the lap that Murray Walker calls the greatest ever single lap he has ever seen driven by anyone.

I went to see the documentary Senna the other day and found it to be an emotional, moving, poetic and at times disturbing film tracing the career of the 3 times world champion.

The footage is amazing, with the director having received special permission from Bernie to raid his footage material store at Biggin Hill. This consists of such things as driver briefings we have never previously seen, Senna on TV shows in Brazil flirting shamelessly with pretty woman presenters and footage shot in and around the paddock.

It starts with Senna arriving on the karting scene in Europe and from there charts his rise up to the top in Formula 1 and ends with his death at Imola in 1994. Actually the last piece of footage is quite beautiful and shows you the man behind the driven enigma of Senna....he is asked who is the greatest individual he has faced on the track (I believe this footage was from his later Mclaren years, possibly 93...)....not Prost, not Mansell, but a karting chap by the name of Terry Fullerton...because it was pure racing, no politics.

You see his infamous interview with Jackie Stewart, which until now I had only read about...hehe...funny! You see the friendly moments he had with Prost before their relationship descended into trying to run each other off the road. You see Piquet and plenty of other drivers standing up for Senna in a driver briefing, with Senna himself getting so emotional that he walks out!

I don't like agreeing with Ron Dennis, but from this film you do get a true sense of what the man was really like, on the track and away from it.

Senna's open and honest remarks about not being invincible and being afraid of dying on the track are particularly poignant and upsetting as we all know what's coming.

Obviously in a film about Senna, he won't be portrayed as anything but a true hero battling the authority of the FIA. Prost contributed to the film and probably knew he wouldn't be portrayed in the best light at times, but I must say, from what I knew of their rivalry before I would say it's not as black and white for me as it was.

It's a well put together film, with Senna himself narrating via interviews over the footage.

The pain and despair at the fateful weekend in Imola is apparent as soon as Rubens goes off at 170 mph. Of the 3 crashes his actually looked the worst, going airborne before smashing into the armco.

Prof Sid Watkins was a good friend of Senna and he asked him not to race that weekend after Rubens was injured and Roland Ratzenberger died, he said they could both retire and go fishing there and then. Senna simply replied "I cannot".

If the piece of suspension that hit Senna in the head and pierced his helmet had hit 6 inches higher or lower he would have walked back to the pits.

I actually forgot that Prost was in the Williams pit at the time of Senna's accident.

All in all, it's a brilliant film and beautifully done frankly.

More statistics than you can shake a stick at

Phil: Categorical proof that this season's championship battle is over.http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/interactive/2011/apr/28/formula1-championship-points-2011

About the best thing you can say is: haven't they chosen him a gay shade of indigo?

Will be back with a more detailed post soon.

Best Monaco GP ...ever....or since 92?

Justin: I still think it was probably the best Monaco GP ever, or the best I've seen. The only downside is that the safety car 8 laps from the end robbed us all of what was sure to have been a dramatic finale. Instead we got the front 3 running on new tyres, having changed during the red flag period, and as such they finished in the same order. Bit of an anti-climax....which is why it doesnt stand up to Mansell Vs Senna in 92.....but they were only going at it for 5/6 laps, where as Vettel, Alonso and Button were line a stern for what, 10/15 laps?

Clearly I cannot decide which race is better....I enjoyed the 3 champions going at it, covered by a second for all those laps, yet I feel robbed of a proper ending. Alonso would have put a move on Vettel, he said as much afterwards as he had little to lose.

Does it really matter if I cannot decide which race was better? Probably not.

A nod to my co-blogger for joining me for the annual "I Was Having A Blog" live event. I think we can safely say the weekend was a success, though I'm not sure about having him knocking on the toilet door to update me when people pit.

Lewis Hamilton's post race remarks no doubt overshadowed the race result itself. I won't let him do that here...but my co-blogger and I watched in utter disbelief as Lewis proceeded to blame anyone but himself for his piss poor overtaking during the race, calling other drivers stupid idiots as well as doing a rather poorly timed "joke" about how he thought the fia were racist. Clearly not showing his best side here. Every bodged overtake Lewis tried was all his fault frankly...we clearly saw each of them.

Elsewhere Schumi started 5th and dropped off straight away pretty much, enduring another miserable weekend.

Petrov had an odd accident which looked rather slow speed to say the least. Apparently he had problems moving his legs and pain in his foot so he thought it best to let others take him out of the car rather than get out himself.

Webber again had a somewhat mixed day. He admitted afterwards that for whatever reasons he just cannot go very long on the first stint with Pirelli tyres. The big difference between he and Vettel it would seem.

Even Alonso now has said the title is pretty much Vettel's as he has now taken 5 of the first 6 race wins. Every time this has been done in the past, 4 times (?), that same person has won the world title.

Lewis is still Vettel's nearest challenger, some 53 points adrift of the German driver.

Another "what if" moment.....Mclaren's engineers had calculated that within 3 laps Vette's tyres would have "dropped off the cliff". Can't help but wonder how he would have kept Alonso and Button behind...

Onto Montreal we go.

Insane - Street Fighter

Justin: Having watched practice 1 and 2 today I can report that Fernando Alonso is most definately "on it". Talk about going for it big style....sliding across kerbs on chicanes at Monaco and posting the fastest time of the day....the cream always rises to the top here....game on. If he wins he will be the only guy in history to win the Monaco GP with 3 different teams. Lets get it on!!

Spanish Fighter

Justin: Yes, that's right, another Alonso themed blog...well to start with anyway. My co-blogger knows how excited I get watching racing so you could only imagine the jumping up and down along with the Murray Walker-esque "heeehhhheeeyyyyyyy"...as Fernando stormed into the lead from 4th on the grid at Barcelona. As Martin Brundle pointed out, quite rightly, when reviewing the start from the onboard camera, it was quite stunningly brave, reactive and instinctive racing from Fernando as he darted this way and that full throttle behind the Red Bulls. The Spanish crowd roared above the noise of the engines as he led the field away.

After 18 laps of leading the race he was relegated to 2nd by, you guessed it, Vettel and by the end of the race Fernando was lapped and down in 5th. Ferrari have relegated Aldo Costa from his Technical Director position after just 5 races of vast underperformance compared to what they expected from this year.

To my mind this leaves Ferrari somewhat up shit creek without a paddle (magic paddle??). Fernando is now a whopping 67 points behind Vettel in the title race...I say race, but thats to assume there are actually others in the fight with Vettel.

We'll have to see what Monaco brings as Fernando usually goes well there, aside from funking his car into the wall in quali last year..ehm.

Elsewhere you have to ponder Mark Webbers state of mind at Red Bull. I thought he'd landed Vettel with a bloody nose at least when he put in a great quali lap to get pole. The annoying thing about Vettel is that he is sometimes rather nice and he was pretty gracious when commenting that him not having kers shouldnt be talked about as Mark basically did a better job.

Webber ended up 4th, behind a storming drive from Button who dropped to 12th early on then went onto a 3 stop strategy which saw him surge up the field for a podium.

Schumi had a pretty good day at the office too, finishing 6th and keeping his young team-mate well behind him...he was due I guess.

I sort of drifted in and out of the race from around half way through as Alonso faded...come on it was Spain so I was rather down.

Let's have a look at Vettel and who can challenge him seriously.......at this point in time...

- Webber has the same car but is nowhere near him and needs to find something quickly.

- Button has the next best car but is being slowly left behind in the points race by Lewis and hasnt won a race for a year.

- Alonso has the 3rd best car currently and it is showing. 67 points adrift. Then again you could say he had the 2nd or 3rd best car for some parts of last season and he turned it around...BUT...Ferrari are in utter disaray right now.

- Lewis is the only guy who looks like winning a gp and challenging Vettel....but even he is having issues keeping pace with him...

Vettel's nearest challenger is 41 points behind.....

Blog closed, I am almost depressed right now.

Another statistic

Phil: A quick check of the F1 stat-o-meter reveals that it's no wonder the Turkish GP was so confusing: there were more pitstops (82) than in any other race since F1 began in 1950.

Senna, Schumacher and Vettel

Phil: As usual an excellent summary of the last race from my co-blogger, although a detailed account would take more space than we can spare. So much was happening each lap at Istanbul that even a seasoned commentator like Martin Brundle could barely keep up, and commented at one point I believe how the leader pitting doesn't even merit air time, there's so much else happening on the track.

One thing is beyond doubt, though, as my co-blogger admirably explained: Vettel is in a class of his own. I half expected he might be: he certainly had the pace last season but lacked the maturity, as his collision with Webber at Istanbul a year ago showed. A year on, however, and the confidence that being reigning world champion gives, he is in a different class. I confidently expect him to be the first driver in five years to successfully defend his world title.

The funny thing is, last year we had an enthralling, season-long battle for the title that we couldn't really call until about half way through the last race, but of the races themselves, none of them really stick in the mind. This year, although the championship will probably have been wrapped up by Hungary, you can't look away from the races for a minute.

I've said before that I don't really know why Schumi came out of retirement, and still think he'll regret it in the long run. There are two reasons why he probably un-retired: firstly, because he thought he could be genuinely competitive again, and secondly, because he simply enjoys driving a F1 car. I don't think anyone seriously expects him to win a race again, let along a championship, and as he said after Turkey: the joy isn't there. It's hardly surprising. This is a driver who broke all the records, who barring a few years in the late 1990s when he was building Ferrari into the force it is today was accustomed to being virtually unchallenged and unchallengeable. Why would he now enjoy not winning, and being outraced by men half his age? Johnny Herbert, his team mate at Benetton in 1995, thinks he'll retire permanently at the end of this season, and I think he may be right.

Speaking of great F1 drivers of the past, there's a great interview with the man some call the Gavin Winston of F1 in the Guardian (which may even be linked to this blog, or maybe not). Newey, who designed the car in which Ayrton Senna was killed, talks about how his death affected him and how he won't be watching the new film about Senna.

Finally, I think my co-blogger will agree that the only date that needs to be in anyone's diary in the next few weeks is the I Was Having a Blog live event of the year at Monaco. Well, actually in High Wycombe, which is like Monaco. Well, they're both hilly...anyway I digress.

Racing for 2nd?

Justin: Once again, what an amazingly, erm, amazing race in Turkey. One does wonder though...at this point in time at least, it seems like those behind Vettel are squabbling for second place. Vettel all but disappears and leads from the front whilst the rest produce a hell of a race behind to see who is second best.

It also must be said, that Vettel is fine whilst leading from the front, but he hasn't had to produce a drive from the back to overtake loads of people yet. Last time he tried that he ended up nerfing his team-mate in Turkey last year and Button in Belgium!

Let this blogger go on record and say that Vettel is the fastest guy in the fastest car on the grid, but he is not the best driver. There is Alonso then Hamilton in that bracket. Anyway, I digress.

The Turkish GP was awesome, yet Vettel's win was never really in much doubt.

I have plenty of points to raise from this GP:

1) Rosberg battering Schumi
2) Mclaren fighting
3) Alonso on the podium again
4) Vettel

Rosberg qualified third on the grid, compared to Schumi's 8th with over a second between them. Schumi had a mare of a race in which afterwards he actually admitted one (of the many) coming together was all his fault. This is extremely rare, for him to admit something was his fault....ask Hill and Villeneuve! Then he went on to admit that he wasn't getting much joy out of racing right now. EJ asked DC on how he came to decide it was time for him to retire and DC just said he realised he wasn't enjoying it as much anymore. I'd say it was 50/50 as to whether Schumi quits at the end of the year. He needs better races, fast. Rosberg is making him look slow and stupid frankly.

Some fantastic fighting between Button and Lewis early on, and indeed later in the race. These two are utterly professional and once again showed how team-mates can fight on the edge without taking each other out...it was truly edge of the seat stuff and made the hairs on my neck stand up. Fantastic!

Alonso drove a sterling race to bring his improving Ferrari home in 3rd. Massa actually had a fairly good race too, but pit-stop misfortune and on track banging sent his day downhill.

You'd have to say at the moment, it's up to Webber and Alonso to take points from Vettel. Vettel stands some 33 points ahead of 2nd placed Lewis...which is kind of depressing. As Martin Brundle pointed out in his blog, with that title table in any other year people would be switching off through fear of the title being decided by half way through the season. F1 is more popular than ever now as races are fun and have plenty of stuff going on.

I'm still not sure about DRS....ok it's technology, which F1 is all about...but, let them use it wherever they want. As Webber pointed out, he isn't a fan because it was way too easy passing a guy as good as Fernando with DRS etc.

Someone has to halt Vettel soon. The 5 guys who fought for the title last year are the top 5 guys again this year. Game on then...someone step up and start winning.

Schumi should really just bugger off and retire me thinks.

EJ needs better shirts, though JB liked it!

Oh and the funny GP moment for me was the two Renault guys gesturing at each other whilst banging wheels.

Onto Spain we go!

I laughed at this one a lot! :-)

Justin: Hello co-blogger and F1 fans. The link below shows a link to the Ferrari website where the top people at Ferrari are wishing Massa a happy 30th.

The greeting from my fave Spaniard is priceless - Happy 30th, I am so happy you are my number 2. hehehehehehehehe :-).

http://www.ferrari.com/English/Formula1/News/Headlines/Pages/110425_F1_Happy_Birthday_Felipe.aspx

I've also folded some pages over of my new F1 book, so my co-blogger and I can discuss many interesting facts.

Apologies

Justin: Apologies to all for the slight cock up in the format of my last blog where I appeared to sign off mid blog, then continue with the news round up.

Did you get his autograph?

Justin: Well, having Button park in your drive is much better than having Hamilton park in your drive surely...moving on :-).

Just over a month until the "I Was Having A Blog" live Monaco weekend gets underway. I should remind my co-blogger to get watching the 2007 review dvd if he hasn't done so already, so he can return it a year after having borrowed it :-).

Quick news round up....

- Robert Kubica is improving daily and has left hospital to rest at home for a few days before he heads to Italy to begin his rehabilitation programme. It should be noted that he still only has rather limited use of his injured hand, and nobody really knows if he will ever return. Fingers crossed...pardon the pun. Part of the issue of course is that he hasnt been using the muscles to move his hand for weeks now, so they are rather under strength. Once the strength has been regained in those muscles, they can properly assess the hand...I think.

- Turkey looks likely to be wiped from the F1 season in 2012 thanks to Bernie and his ways with cash.

Thats about it from me....no F1 to furnish the easter weekend with and to combat a tiresome, boring royal wedding next weekend...talk about sucking big time!

- The DRS might not be used at Monaco due to safety reasons...

- Alonso and Hamilton are their countries highest earning sports stars apparently.

- Just bought myself another F1 book - F1:On This Day. It provides a day by day event analysis of things that happened in F1 through history on each day of the year. Aces!

- There is a rumour that F1 could switch to Pay TV if bought by Murdoch....I doubt either will ever happen as long as Bernie is around. Plus the concorde agreement between teams demands that F1 be on free to air tv.

-

Came home from work tonight and Jenson Button had parked in my drive

Phil: I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation for Button's 'pit stop strategy' to which my co-blogger has alluded. After all, it's not long since last season, when he was world champion, and got the first pit box. Christian Horner joked that Button was obviously very keen to drive for Red Bull. Sebastian Vettel joked that he might drop into McLaren next time out in Turkey and borrow some of Jenson's tyres. Er....stick to being world champions, guys.

My co-blogger has as usual done a sterling job of summarising what was actually a complex and tricky race. I've little to add, except for: wasn't it the dog's bollocks? We haven't had a race that good for ages. I mean, last year was good, but the interest for me came from the five way fight for the title, which ebbed and flowed all season until the very last race. I seriously don't remember a race as good as this last year, when any one of four, five, maybe six drivers could actually have won it (there were a couple of laps, after the first set of stops, when I seriously thought Rosberg would win it).

Here's an interesting thing. DRS was introduced to give us more overtaking. Some (my co-blogger and I included, I think) say it's artificial - Jake Humphreys compared it to American wrestling. We had plenty of overtaking at Shanghai, and both Hamilton and Webber put in aggressive, overtaking drives that probably would have been easily the drive of the season, were it not for the other's. (Webber fought his way from 18th on the grid to 3rd in the race, and Hamilton won having made it to the grid with little more than 30 seconds to spare after a fuel leak in the garage). But, and it's a big but, neither of them used DRS very much to overtake. They almost didn't need to. The thing that made the difference at both Shanghai and Sepang - more so even than Hamilton's and Webber's masterful performances - is tyres. As someone said after the race, 'thank you Pirelli!'. With Pirelli's disintegrating masterpieces all round, every race is a wet race. To win races in 2011, you need to manage your tyre strategy to have the right tyres in the right condition at the right moment in the race, and then use your advantage to pass the opposition.

I think we have another classic season to relish.

What a great race!

Justin: Well, it seems that we (me) tainted Vettel's fortunes by predicting a win for him in the race (I don't mind being too wrong on this count!). My co-blogger also helped out Vettel by saying that the guy who wins the first 3 races always goes on to win the title. Good stuff.

Looking back though, I did say what I would like to see happen.....and Webber delivered a frankly amazing drive from 18th to 3rd! Good to see I sometimes predict good things.

The race in China had everything! Oh, a belated good morning to my co-blogger who, according to my source, got up for the race only to go straight back to bed extremely hungover from the night before. Naughty!

There were overtakes galore, starting with the start as Button and Hamilton both passed Vettel. At various stages, including near the end of the race, the top 5 were covered by only a few seconds.

Button was caught napping when he parked in the Red Bull pit for tyres...whoops! It was a bizarre moment for someone who is usually so cool and calm. After the race he said he was just looking down at something and got distracted.

Three or four laps from the end we had Lewis hunting down Vettel with a sense of excitement in the air. He passed him, and Webber, driving from 18th on the grid, hunted down and passed Button for the final podium slot.

Frankly, I cannot begin to describe how exciting the race was. Lewis Hamilton drove a superb race to win and he is now some 18 points from Vettel in the title hunt. Button is a further 10 behind Lewis, with Webber 1 point behind him.

Mark Webber gets my driver of the day, is that two in two races?? The guy drove an absolutely stonking race, making ballsy overtakes whenever and wherever he could. 18th to 3rd could prove to be the turning point of his season.

Nico Rosberg deserves a mention too, as he was in the mix for the majority of the race, but along with Ferrari and Vettel (who were on two stops) he fell away towards the end and finished 5th.

What of Ferrari? Massa outpaced Alonso for the entire race, which is an interesting change in dynamic there. Ferrari were never in the hunt at all really. Massa was second at one point, but he was on two stops and he was swallowed up by Lewis and Jenson near the end on newer tyres.

Ferrari need to do something to halt their slide towards obscurity, which is what it's looking like at the moment.

Halfway through the season last year, Alonso was some 40 or so points from the top of the title table....he is already that far off after 3 races.

Well done Mark Webber!!! Onto Turkey we go, with a massive 3 week wait. Bah!

A statistic

Phil: As my co-blogger has admirably explained, Vettel is on pole for tomorrow's Chinese grand prix, 0.7s ahead of his nearest rival. If he can capitalise on this and turn it into a win he'll have taken the first three races of the season. That's only happened six times before in the 61 years of F1 (Senna '91, Mansell '92, Schumacher '94, '00 and '04 and Hill '96). Each time the driver has gone on to take the world title. Howzat for a statistic?

Vettel Dominates

Justin: Believe me, I don't like naming this latest blog as I have done, but I can think of nothing else to write!

My co-blogger and I had a fun "I Was Having A Blog" live phone chat last night. We spoke of many things and both ultimately agreed that Red Bull as a team seemed far less behind Webber this year. Last year they were keen to spell out at every race the drivers were equal.

It doesnt need spelling out much anymore. Vettel has a hassle free time where as Webber's car had electric problems and broke down in final practice. It was quite ominous as Jake and DC paraded around the pitlane before Qualifying to find Red Bull frantically putting Mark's car back together just about in time for Quali. Horner went on record as saying Vettel had Kers with no problems but they probably wouldn't risk running it with Mark, for quali at least.

Red Bull seem....entirely less bothered with Mark having problem after problem than they would be if it was Seb, of that I am certain. The Number 2 has to look out for number 1, now more than ever.

I imagine it must be damaging to know you won't have KERS power during quali and that you probably cannot rely on it during the race either.

Mark starts a rather bad 18th on the grid after Red Bull sent him out for a final run in q1 on hard tyres. They said the time was there, but they just couldnt get temperature in the tyres. Horner was asked whose decision it was, a team decision we were told. They really should have sent him out on softs to guarantee a good time, as those tyres are over a second quicker than the hard compound.

I am rather worried for Mark's status at Red Bull.

Moving on....Vettel was 0.7 of a second ahead of second placed Button. Hamilton and Rosberg followed closely, with Alonso a staggering 1.4 seconds off pole in 5th.

If you are Alonso and Ferrari, 1.4 seconds is an absolutely disgusting amount of time.

Apparently the Mclaren team want to look more like Ferrari for some reason....just what is it with the red santandar overalls guys??!!!

I predict a relatively comfortable Vettel win tomorrow....even though the quali gap is quite galling, the chasing pack have been closer during the races, well in Malaysia they were anyway. Button will be Vettel's closest challenger as Lewis kills his tyres all the time.

Vettel to win, the rest squabbling over the best of the rest.

Me? I may predict the above, but what I would like to see happen is Webber storm through for a podium.

Malaysia - Much improved from Australia

Justin: First things first, welcome back to my co-blogger. I cannot wait for the annual "I Was Having A Blog" live event on the Monaco GP weekend. Excellent.

Also, I noticed that he has stuck his neck out to predict Vettel winning the title. Whilst I would point out that it isn't much of a neck sticking out moment, given that his main rivals aren't exactly hot on his heels, I would agree it would be hard to bet against him at this moment in time. Even I said it was a Vettel or Alonso title this year, and with Ferrari fannying around trying to work out what has happened to their car, Vettel is waltzing away at the moment.

After the race, Vettel himself said "Ask Jenson, we know, as he did in 2009, that it is important to get maximum points from the races before others catch you up".

Malaysia was a damn good fun race all round really. As a well seasoned blogger predicted, me, the race was a vast improvement on the season opener in Melbourne.

Vettel did not dissapear into the distance, though Lewis was held up for a while by a lightening fast starting Nick Heidfeld. Webber had KERS issues from the start, ie he didnt have any, any thusly got swamped from the start and went back to 10th for a short period.

In fact, my driver of the day award goes to Mark Webber....just about shading it from Nick Heidfeld. To have no KERS from the start and battle his way through the field and 4 pit stops, a field of cars with KERS, is a mighty achievment to come 4th.

We know too that Vettel had KERS problems, but he used it for at least half the race.

One does have to wonder about the situation at Red Bull. The difference between Webber and Vettel this year is frankly astonishing, given last year they were pretty much equal. Does a world title win make one guy so much faster? Does a world title loss make the other guy so much slower? Does the world champion utterly crush all hope of the nearly man by dominating in such a way? Or, are there darker forces at work? Vettel does seem utterly dominant....but....it's not like Webber is ever the guy to give up or fold totally in the face of adversity. I just don't believe he and he alone is that much worse than Vettel this year. Ok, I could be stirring...but Lewis believes the Red Bull car is illegal, so why can't I speculate on my suspicion that Red Bull are favouring their champion?

Jenson Button had a sterling drive through to second, helped in part by a ropey pitstop for Lewis. A charging Alonso came up behind Hamilton late on and "they touched" (alonso's words). Hamilton was rather slow, Alonso rather fast....and a coming together looked inevitable frankly.

Lewis had a good old moan and whinge after the race and blamed his team for his weekend's shortcomings....really, just when will he grow up a bit? He does this a lot.

Schumi picked up some points, as did Sauber with Koboyashi.

Petrov flew...literally!

Onto China we go, except for the Ferrari team leaders who have buggered off back to Italy to look over data and try and improve their car. Good luck lads!