The Chinese Puzzle….

This season started like no other in the sport in that the championship could have been (it still may have been) decided in a court rather than on the track. Well it seems like the first part of it is done. With the court of appeals upholding the diffuser design its advantage Brawn for the moment and I guess its up to other teams to get on board. How long this will take will eventually decide the outcome of the title, though right now with the testing ban and other cost saving measures in place would it be harder for the sports big guns to catch up?

My only question to the whole deal is why couldn’t this be decided before the first race ? Wouldn’t it seem farcical if the court ruled differently and the results nullified?

This year seems to be most affected by the rain gods. I don’t remember this much rain to the start of any formula 1 season so far. If I’m not mistaken the safety car driver has probably completed more laps than some of the drivers. I was an awesome pole by Vettel and with Fernando Alonso in P2 it seemed like the racing would get more interesting! That his qualification was due to being extremely light ensured that he wouldn’t be near the lead.

With the start behind the safety car it seemed like it would play into the hands of the brawns as they were definitely more heavily fueled, and with the awesome pit strategy with button coming back out in second place after refueling it seemed like a cake walk for Button to claim his third win. But Vettel started string some quick laps, I think some 14 consecutive laps in the 1’ 54’s range ensured that he emerged after his pit stop just 1.4 seconds behind button. In the meantime Webber and button had a good battle between them, (each going of a couple of times) before Webber also managed to break away and build up enough of a lead to make 2nd place safe.

Lewis Hamilton had an eventful race spinning around 3 to four times before finishing behind his teammate in 6th. The Ferraris were having a decent race until Massa retied from 3rd place and Kimi just did not seem to be moving after his pit stop from 4th. In between Massa and Lewis had a bit of a battle till Kubica drove over Truli, bringing out the safety car which took a long time to pick up the race (wonder if he will be getting any Christmas cards from the Italian!)

Force India seemed to be on track for its first points after a strong drive from Adrian Sutil, but he lost the backend with 6 laps to go under pressure from Hamilton. So Vijay Mallya is still looking for his first points. Fisi is now under pressure and is almost certain to lose his seat next year (if not earlier). The Bruno Senna rumors keep getting stronger!


All in all a very exciting race and with one of the court dates settled we can now look forward to the racing. All except the Mclarens who must still be a bit worried after the Melbourne controversy. However the recent retirement of Ron Dennis and the firing of Ryan should make things a bit better for them. The whole incident seems to show that Hamilton influence is certainly growing stronger in formula 1, and I do think that he would be tempted to a better car/better offer in the future (a far cry from the Mclaren for life tune he was singing in the off season). On the verdict itself, my own view is that they would not risk losing a lot of eyeballs by banning Lewis who definitely gets a lot of fans to the sport, and banning him would make most of them lose interest in the championship. A fine like last year or a team level punishment would seem more likely.

The season still seems to be in a state of flux and the significant improvement of the Red bulls with their diffuser expected to added soon could be expected to contend with the brawns and the Toyotas. Adrian Newey was the architect of the dominant Williams and Mclaren cars in the ‘90s and the current honcho at Red Bull must be looking to show up Ross Brawn after his comments at the diffuser trial and the initial signs seem to be encouraging.

The Brawns seemed to have met their match for the first time and they could not keep up with the Red bulls, but pretty much left the others behind. Button mentioned a problem of maintaining the heat in the tyres, guess we will know in a few days if this is only a wet weather problem and whether they will still dominate in normal conditions. Jenson Button still seems to be the odds on favorite for the drivers championship.

The Toyotas are strong but they are yet to win a GP and their window seems to be closing with the other teams playing catch up. Though they had some bad luck in China, they seem to be a few tenths off the pace to win GPs at the moment.

In earlier years the short Austral-asian start to the season meant that teams could afford to write of the season till they got to Europe before getting their season track. With the revised schedule it now is no longer possible to do that

The Macs looked better with the new diffuser and the wing adjustments; also the Renault seems to be in the forefront of getting a new diffuser on track. The Ferraris seem to be in trouble with both speed and reliability problems. The Renault seems to be unpredictable and seems to be performing on the back of Alonsos skill.

A short break and then we are off to Bahrain and the possibility of the 3 powerhouses of Formula1 potentially ending up with less points than Button, or will the thousands of engineers mange to catch up with the Brawns ?… either way its and exciting road ahead.

The Storm at Sepang

Well the experiment by Bernie and gang to have the race at a more viewer friendly time was washed out (spectacularly I might add). Well with most teams and drivers looking at the rain and working out their strategy looking at the weather as against what was happening on the track!!! So the half race was a most disappointing result.

So here is what seems obvious after 2 races.

1) The Brawns look awesome, and they look good even in the wet
2) The pecking order has changed. It’s Brawn, Toyota, Williams and the red bulls that are fighting it out in the front.

Well to the race itself and one of the most amazing starts with cars going almost 4 wide into a single corner, without any major incidents to boot! Alonso had probably the best start with Button and Barrichelo not really starting of well. After a few laps it was quite clear that Alonso was quite heavy and he still managed to keep Barichelo behind him for quite a few laps!

Kimi’s race was probably spoiled by the time he spent behind Alonso as the front runners pulled out close to 25 seconds before he could get in front of Alonso and all the front runners were able to pit and come out in front of him.

We got to see the KERS working during Alonso’s battles with Weber , but whether it is a significant advantage is still open to debate!

What were Ferrari thinking?
Well the first two races have certainly shown that the brain trust at Ferrari is no longer what it was. First they screwed up with Barrichelo in qualifying on Saturday and then they decided to send Kimi out in full wets, which needed the rain to fall within the first lap and when it didn’t his race was effectively over. The Barrichelo decision was probably overconfidence and the Kimi decision was probably desperation!

Some of the other teams also made a mess of the tyres choices (Toyota and Truli) but overall no one really gained from the tyre poker. If there was any advantage it was to the lower placed cars who were heavier fuelled and were able to pit later and probably avoid a pit stop as against the cars in the lead and even this was not much of an advantage as the cars in the lead had built up enough of a cushion for the extra pit stop.

Overall a disappointing race, and we must wonder if the timings will change again next year, but if the teams are more concerned about the storm than just plain racing to me there is something wrong and needs to be looked into. Also there was not enough of a run in he wet to give some of the drivers who excel a chance to make up some ground!

So I guess its over to Shanghai and bit more clarity. We should also have the diffuser ruling in by then so we could be a little clearer as to who has the advantage…
As of now its seems that brawn have the brains to rule!