Round 4: Russia

Justin:

Best radio transmission of the year, or any year in recent history..
Clearly goes to Mr Vettel. Amongst the many bleeps, he was essentially exasperated at being punted off not once, but twice! Classic, amusing stuff there. Kvyat admitted fault for turn 2 as he locked up, but at turn 3 Vettel was lifting off because he thought he had damage. It's a bit more difficult to react when you are following someone a metre behind at 200mph, when they suddenly slow down where they are meant to be doing flat out.

Ferrari are not having the best of starts to a season at all. Then again, Kimi has collected two podiums in as many races. You'd have thought Vettel could have done more though.

Fun racing, but not at the front
It was a great race to watch, with plenty going on through the field, except at the front. Rosberg was comfortable in leading throughout and took his 4th win of the year, 7th in a row (joining Ascari and Schumacher on that tally, with only Vettel on 9 ahead of him). I've said this before...Hamilton ran off like a scalded dog for most of 2015 and there was no fighting at the front. Same for Rosberg right now.

Once again his main competition had problems and fell away at the start (Vettel), or even before the start (Hamilton with his engine issues starting 10th).

Rosberg knows the challenge will come eventually. Hamilton knows too. He also knows he can't buy any luck at all right now.

McLaren rising? 
Alonso the racer and fighter is still there, as evidenced by him going round the outside of all the mess at turn 3. Opportunity/ luck/ instinct...call it what you will, it lifted him to 8th and he eventually finished 6th. Button took 10th and despite Vettel falling off the track, both guys said the pace was there and a double points finish was on merit.

Driver of the day
Max was running second for a while, Alonso got a good result. Both Williams drivers did well too. Magnussen came 7th....in a Renault. Right there is my driver of the day I think. Either him or Hamilton.

To Spain in two weeks we go. I want a fight at the front between Lewis and Nico.

Might be worth pointing out that it's twenty years since Damon Hill won the championship. To date, he is the only world champion son of a world champion. To date. Twenty years is a nice round number no?

The final word is for Ayrton Senna. I read somewhere that the Russian GP this year was the first to be held on May 1st since Senna died 22 years ago. Wow. 22 years. Still feels like yesterday.

A legend. He passed away on raceday, but of course we cannot forget Roland Ratzenberger, who died the day before.

Both guys were 34, which I only just realised.

Now...where was I?

Justin:

Two rounds gone, two wins for Mercedes. It seems the rumours were bang on the money before the season started. Mercedes have gotten themselves a huge gap and the title race will seemingly be fought between Nico and Lewis.

F1 2014
Is a new beast. It is an engine formula now, with aerodynamics taking a backseat. Mercedes have the best engine by far, hence even if the Red Bull is the fastest car in certain corners and is more aerodynamically efficient etc, the Mercedes engine still has more grunt. With horsepower to spare and the Renault engines having serious reliability issues, I find it difficult to see where another winner will come from at least until we get back to Europe or a wet race before then.

Ferrari
Pains me to say it, but the Ferrari does not look that fast. Alonso pretty much started 4th and finished 4th in both races, making no notable superfast overtakes aside from on Hulkenberg at the end of Malaysia (Hulk's tyres were shot to pieces). It's easier to make a fast car reliable, than to make a reliable car fast. The Ferrari is reliable, but looks to be the third fastest car behind Mercedes and Red Bull...at best.

Domination - Nico vs Lewis
It's early days, but you'd be silly not to put fair cash on either of the Mercedes drivers being champion in 2014. At least there are two people dominating right now, as opposed to just Vettel in the second half of 2013 - though I must say the Malaysian race was pretty boring!!

I am still going with my instinct and sticking with Nico for the title. People are saying Hamilton thrashed him at Sepang and that Nico wouldnt have won had Lewis not retired in Oz. Well, the latter we'll never know. The former - Nico seemed happy enough with second in Sepang. Just like JB accepted when he was at McLaren with Lewis, there will be days when Lewis absolutely knocks you out of the park. It's what you do on the days he doesnt that matters. Over a season, I think it's going to be a very close run thing between these two.

Felipe - Valtteri is faster than you
I sympathise with Massa here. Surely Williams will understand where he was coming from on ignoring team orders.

Hulkenberg
How has this guy not go a top drive? He was awesome in Malaysia.

New sound
I still miss the V8 roar, especially when they are on the grid starting the race. But, you can hear the fans cheering, the tyres screeching and the engine sound is quite different engine to engine and it's nice and deep...rich.

Next round....Bahrain. Let's hope Mark Webber avoids Nigel Mansell impressions in future.

3 minutes 10...hehehe

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/26798524

Schumi and Senna
No news on Schumi unfortunately.

It's 20 years in May since the passing of the great Aryton Senna. Two giants of the sport.

Here is a very cool twenty year anniversary edition of Senna's helmet, designed by the son of the guy who used to design Senna's helmets.

Murray Walker....the voice of reason amongst all this tyre bashing.

Justin:

I've had a couple of thoughts.

1. I need to blog more regularly as Spain and Monaco have now been and gone since my last blog.
2. Why do I need to record my name now my esteemed (former?) colleague now only guest blogs on the rare moment it takes his fancy?

For the record, of course he is always welcome.


Tyres...

Everyone has an opinion on whether tyre degredation has gone too far in creating a show for the fans. Former drivers, current drivers, team bosses, commentators...hell, even Bernie himself!

Bernie is on record as saying it's good bringing tyre strategy into it as it makes the drivers think about strategy for the first time in years. Fair enough.

In Monaco we had the Mercedes pair managing their pace early on, going around two seconds slower than cars further back. This was of course to help tyre management, pacing themselves for a one stop strategy. It created a snake of cars all bunched up, where of course it's tricky to pass at Monaco, and this caused plenty of racing mishaps.

Vettel was whinging big time yet again about tyres - witness him putting in the fastest lap of the race near the end, by a second and a half. His engineer told him he won't get any points for that. Vettel replied with a "no, but the satisfaction". Child. Toys. Pram.

I'm leaning towards the school of thought that says Pirelli are doing what was asked of them, to make tyres that do not last half a race distance. Tyre management has featured many times in F1 previously. Races where huge amounts of pitstops just for tyres have featured previously.

Kimi himself said that this is F1 as it stands now, so you either like it or simply stop driving.

I have stumbled across perhaps one of the most knowledgeable opinions in all of F1 whilst reading my new F1 Racing magazine this month.

Murray Walker speaks a lot of sense and reason - I highly recommend people seek it out and have a good read.

"Having tyres that 'unnecessarily' wear out is no dafter than having 'unnecessary' fuel stops, which used to happen because the rules specified fuel tank capacities insufficient for race distances." 


Spain

Great win for Alonso. Also fantastic seeing him stop to greet his fans on the drivers parade. The crowd noise was insane and reminded me of Silverstone during the Nige days.

Monaco

Utterly commanding win for Nico. Lewis has started with the excuses now Rosberg has beaten him to pole three times on the spin and generally had better races in the last couple of outings too.

He looked rather befuddled when he stated "yeah, qualifying is usually where I am really strong". Oh dear.

Surely Grosjean is on thin ice after ramming the back of some poor bugger and punting them both out.

Speaking of which. Kimi thinks someone should punch Perez in the face. Form a queue..starting with the world champions currently on the grid me thinks!

To Canada we go on the 8th/9th June weekend. Live on the BBC! Yeah!

On a birthday note - the picture below is now hanging on my wall, blown up rather large and printed on canvas - a great birthday present from my folks. Hangs next to framed paintings of Jacques and Gilles.

Senna - win at Donnington 93. His best race? Certainly the best first lap in F1 history - just ask Murray.

 

Monaco Magic

Justin:

On a track which offers the ultimate test of a driver, Mark Webber has re-written the history books with his Monaco GP win. He becomes the only Aussie to win the flagship event twice in the history of the sport. He has also won the race in two of the last three years.

He also becomes the sixth winner in six races this year, which has never before happened in F1. Though he didn't seem to care for this particular stat afterwards, saying that the Monaco win would be special regardless of this record.

(image above is from BBC website - we ain't breaching no copyrights here)


And did he do it in some style or what!

His first win of the year catapaults him to joint second in the title race - he is firmly in it ala 2010. Welcome back mate.

At the end of the race he finished just half a second ahead of Rosberg, followed in a train of cars by Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton and Massa. For most of the last twenty laps these guys were seperated by no more than 6 seconds. Fantastic stuff! At one point when the rain started falling, each was all over the back of the guy in front. At one point, they were all well under a second from each other.

Webber got a flyer (for once) at the start whilst Grosjean got in all sorts of bother, punting into Schumi and spinning himself off.

Maldonado had a horror weekend frankly. He used his car as an angry weapon on Perez in quali then crashed out in the race.

Webber, Rosberg, Hamilton and Alonso (all on the softer compound) all stopped for harder styres around laps 29 and 30. By way of a mega in lap Alonso managed to jump Hamilton in the stops, and of course whilst all these guys pitted Vettel cruised by on his harder tyres that he had started on.

Good strategy by Red Bull saw Vettel eventually move from 9th on the grid to 4th at the end which represents a good day for Vettel really.

When Vettel pitted around lap 46 for the softer compound tyres when he was around 17 seconds ahead of Webber, but crucially 20-21 ahead of Hamilton. So, he re-emerged from the pits in 4th.

From lap 47 to the finish on lap 78 we were given Formula 1 racing of the highest order by guys who did not put a foot wrong all day.

It made my neck hairs stand on end watching the train of cars...Webber, Rosberg, Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton...Massa (sort of hanging on just about at the back), covered by so little time for so many laps.

Beautiful!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18228584

Just watch from 5 minutes onwards on this BBC highlights clip!

To race this hard, fast and close is absolutely magnificent. At Monaco you do not get away with mistakes as you would on other tracks - you hit a wall and thats that.

It was a pleasure watching these guys fight.

We truly are in a golden era for F1 - I don't care what negative remarks people have about tyres. F1 drivers adapt - thats a specific skill all the best guys have.

Time for a quick sub-heading feature!

Webber - Driver of the day, on a day when there were a fair few contenders. Faultless race and from pole too.

Schumi - Life in the old dog yet as proved by his blistering quali lap, only to be scuppered by yet again more mechanical issues in the race.

Vettel - Keeps picking up points - great drive from 9th to 4th.

Rosberg - Beautiful drive too - kept Webber honest throughout.

Hamilton - Picked up points again, but are Mclaren going backwards? He seemed to point the finger firmly at their door again, seemingly annoying Whitmarsh a little in the process.

Button - One to forget - now 31 points of the championship lead after 3 rubbish races.

Di Resta - Fantastic drive through to 7th. I doubt he will be at Force India next year.

Alonso - This is where my objectivity may take a battering from my co-blogger, but I have seen various reports from differing sources all saying that Alonso is essentially driving as well as he ever has, doing extraordinary things in an ordinary car (it was a dog at the start of the year, but Ferrari do seem to be turning it into something better. In the meantime Alono's driving ability alone is keeping him in the hunt. He is utterly relentless and never gives up and is always lurking in the points. DC himself called Alonso unbelievable and the BBC's Gary Anderson stated in his blog:

 "In Alonso's case, his position is simply down to the quality of the driver. He has done astounding things with that car. He's always good off the start, always gets stuck in, and then fights the battle from then on." 

 The more I read about people complaining about tyres (fans?) saying they want to know who the fastest guys in the fastest cars are, not have this apparent lottery we are having with six different winners in six races......I say to you, look at the title standings....and shut the fuck up!!!!!

The cream always rises to the top, no matter the conditions, rules etc.....

Alonso leads Webber and Vettel followed by Hamilton, Rosberg, Kimi and Button....

Five of those seven have been contesting the title for the past two years and keeping race wins amongst themselves exclusively (Webber, Vettel, Alonso, Button and Hamilton) and one of the others is a former world champion.

What we have is near enough to a level playing field for the golden generation of Formula One drivers.

Let them get on with it!

Turkey Quali

Justin: Well, I know as a professional blogger I am supposed to show little or no bias...but I was devastated when Alonso went out and didnt make the final qualifying round. I barely watched the top ten shootout. The Ferarri clearly isnt as quick this weekend as Massa was barely 8th. What usually happens is though that Massa is around 6th or so and Alonso is top 3 or 4 (when he isnt pranging the barrier of course). This time it was a case of driver error....but the two red cars didnt look too pacey anyway to be honest. In his interview Alonso said he was pushing to the limit, hence his error. Eddie Jordan spoke some sense finally when he said "the key is Alonso was pushing the car over its limit and the car just isnt good enough to compete".

Anyway, onto other matters. Schumi out does Nico yet again. Damn that man and his ability to get a team working for him alone! Lewis and Jenson did well to be up there with Red Bull.

The fantastically telling thing for me was in the top 3 press conference. Webber was reminded of some sort of issue Red Bull had with orders for leaving the pits (or something like that)...maybe it was pit stop order in final quali....anyway he looked vaguely awkward and answered the question saying "yeah, dunno what happened there, as this weekend it was my turn to go second".....thus Vettel would have had some small advantage given to him by pitting first.

Here is the key....those of you who were watching closely should have seen Vettel look rather disgusted and roll his eyes up to the sky at this point. Could be a few shennanigans in the Red Bull team me thinks soon enough. Vettel, whatever his problems with chasis, brakes..whatever...he just isnt happy in the car or out of it at the moment, as lets be honest...Webber is trashing him good and proper. 3 poles in a row and it could be 3 wins in a row tomorrow. Fair Dinkum Sport! :-)

PS - Martin Brundle described Alonso as a miserable little so and so in interviews...ouchie! I guess we will see what he means tomorrow. I am looking forward to Webber meeting EJ at his Bucks home.