Ste
27th June 2010, 15:06
Build-up
Ferrari brought quite a raft of updates here this weekend. New front wing, new exhaust system, new diffuser. The package was expected to gain us 7 tenths of a second and I also read that we would have an 80% increase in downforce. Clearly the latter is in-correct, but I think we probably bought 5 tenths of a second. The updates worked well, all without problems.
Free-Practice
Ferrari did their usual thing of running fairly heavy in the first session before topping the time sheets in FP2 with a solid time. FP3 was pretty good as well and we looked all set for Qualifying. Our pace on the softs was no better than on the hards, while everyone else looked to gain about 2 tenths from the extra grip.
Qualifying
Qualifying was disappointing for us. We expected Pole or at least the front-row but ended up 4th and 5th after a fairly poor lap from Alonso. The grip disappeared and this is all we could manage.
Mercedes had an even poorer session. Rosberg down in 12th and Schumacher in 15th. Schumacher apparently had a Power Steering issue that caused the car to pull to the left. I doubt that would have made a difference to his lap time, since his teammate was only 3 positions ahead and had been 7 tenths or so quicker for the entire weekend.
Vettel pulled out another great lap, taking Pole, with Webber just behind in P2. Button made an error in the final corner which surely cost him a chance of P3.
Still, there was a 57 lap race ahead so our chances of victory weren't lost just yet.
The first few laps:
Hamilton passed Webber, Alonso passed Webber, Massa passed Webber. So did everyone up to P8. Hamilton hit Vettel into turn 1, but blamed the incident on Vettel for some reason. Both of them got sideways out of the corner, allowing Alonso alongside. They were very close to contact going into Turn 4 but Alonso wasn't able to get past.
Alonso and Massa dropped back from Hamilton in the first few laps but was making up time and closing in on Hamilton up until lap 15.
What happened at the pitstops?
Button and co were the first to pit, they arrived at the pit lane and knew the SC was out so they came in. They pitted a lap earlier than everyone else.
Vettel and Hamilton arrived in the pits, but Alonso was nowhere to be seen. Alonso was in the pits as Hamilton and Vettel exited. But we were previously just a second behind Hamilton, where had we lost 15s to them?
We stacked our cars in the pits, and they did a fantastic job. Massa lost virtually nothing and they both got out quickly.
Vettel rejoined in P1, Hamilton in P2, but Alonso was way down and Massa in P17.
The Safety-Car trouble
Vettel was quick, he passed the safety car before it even came out of the main pit exit. Hamilton backed off on the pit straight, unsure whether to pass or not. Then he suddenly decided to bolt and overtook the Safety Car after the SC exit line. Alonso stayed back behind the safety car, as per the rules.
Alonso complained on the radio and sounded pretty angry, the team telling him to calm down on more than one occasion.
Hamilton's Penalty and the outcome
The Stewards investigated the incident and found Hamilton to be guilty. We all knew about the incident after about 2 minutes, but for some reason the Stewards took about 20 laps to realise what he had done. Why? They are a large team of people who have access to every replay on every car from every angle. They didn't see it, yet we all knew he had done something to have gained all that time. The FIA and Stewards were shocking yet again.
They decided to give him a drive through penalty. Which would have been fine if they'd given it after a lap or two laps, but they took far, far longer. By this point, Hamilton had pulled a huge gap on Alonso who was stuck in traffic. The penalty therefore had basically no effect, putting Hamilton just 15 seconds behind the leader and still in P2.
Red Bull gives you wings, or rather, Kovalainen does
Let's just be sure here, the incident was just a racing incident, however bad it was.
Alonso was in the slipstream of the Lotus, which is already down on top-speed and at the time was lapping about 4 seconds per lap slower than Webber. Webber wasn't expecting Kovalainen to brake so early, he brakes at about 110 metres, compared to Webbers 100m/95m. The closing speed was phenomenal, Webber had no chance to avoid and ended up creaming into the back of the Lotus, taking off, flipping, hitting the advertising hoarding, rolling, before eventually sliding at high speed into the wall.
That was a 190mph+ accident, yet Webber was immediately furious, out of the car and walking away. However much we dislike some of the crazy safety regulations, the way that monocoque held up was incredible. Hardly any damage, all things considered. And thank goodness for the run-offs, which probably slowed his speed by 80mph before he bounced off the tyres.
The rest of the race
Our pace wasn't bad, neither was McLaren's or Red Bulls - but they weren't tucked up in a far slower group. Before the Safety Car, Alonso was quickest of all, but behind these slower cars, we were unable to pass. Getting past a Force India with great straight line speed is near impossible anywhere, but even harder here. All we could do was bring the car home or wait for mistakes.
Backmarkers
Yet again, they were pretty shocking. Nearly costing Kobayashi a place to Button because of their continued scrap. The HRT and Virgin cars in that incident should have been penalised, not only for not moving out of the way of the leaders despite being blue flagged, but for such poor driving.
9 cars under investigation
9 cars were put under investigation after the race due to not hitting their delta lap time when the Safety Car was deployed. Button was the big name involved in the investigation. The outcome of this is still to be decided. The Safety Car is there for a reason, respecting the rules under it should be a priority, so if they aren't penalised then it's yet another poor decision from the stewards.
The Championship
We fell yet further back after this race. Hamilton leads from Button on 127 and 121 points respectively, with the Red Bulls of Vettel and Webber in P3 and P4. Alonso takes P5 in the championship, sitting 31 points behind the leader. Whilst this isn't a massive margin under the new points system, it remains too big of a difference, we shouldn't be this far behind. We've been incredibly unlucky in 5 races so far this season and out position in the championship doesn't reflect the results we should have had.
Hamilton cheating
We spoke about this after the previous race, but he's had about 4 reprimands so far this season and then today the diabolical Safety Car moment. He got penalised today, but the outcome of the penalty meant he might as well not have had it, it made zero difference to the result - where it should have. If Alonso was P9, Hamilton should have been with him, not in P2.
I'm completely fed up of the number of times he gets warnings and no penalties, or penalties that aren't in line with the infraction. How many times does he have to do these things before someone actually makes an effort to penalise him properly? People say Schumacher was bad, that he made many errors but I see more coming from Hamilton than I ever did from Schumacher.
After the race, during the weigh-in, he spoke to Vettel about the contact into Turn 1. He essentially told Vettel it was his fault, when it clearly wasn't. He was then asked about the Safety Car incident, to which he replied "I don't remember much about it". Fed up of this lying, cheating, smug, arrogant little prat.
:-)
Ferrari brought quite a raft of updates here this weekend. New front wing, new exhaust system, new diffuser. The package was expected to gain us 7 tenths of a second and I also read that we would have an 80% increase in downforce. Clearly the latter is in-correct, but I think we probably bought 5 tenths of a second. The updates worked well, all without problems.
Free-Practice
Ferrari did their usual thing of running fairly heavy in the first session before topping the time sheets in FP2 with a solid time. FP3 was pretty good as well and we looked all set for Qualifying. Our pace on the softs was no better than on the hards, while everyone else looked to gain about 2 tenths from the extra grip.
Qualifying
Qualifying was disappointing for us. We expected Pole or at least the front-row but ended up 4th and 5th after a fairly poor lap from Alonso. The grip disappeared and this is all we could manage.
Mercedes had an even poorer session. Rosberg down in 12th and Schumacher in 15th. Schumacher apparently had a Power Steering issue that caused the car to pull to the left. I doubt that would have made a difference to his lap time, since his teammate was only 3 positions ahead and had been 7 tenths or so quicker for the entire weekend.
Vettel pulled out another great lap, taking Pole, with Webber just behind in P2. Button made an error in the final corner which surely cost him a chance of P3.
Still, there was a 57 lap race ahead so our chances of victory weren't lost just yet.
The first few laps:
Hamilton passed Webber, Alonso passed Webber, Massa passed Webber. So did everyone up to P8. Hamilton hit Vettel into turn 1, but blamed the incident on Vettel for some reason. Both of them got sideways out of the corner, allowing Alonso alongside. They were very close to contact going into Turn 4 but Alonso wasn't able to get past.
Alonso and Massa dropped back from Hamilton in the first few laps but was making up time and closing in on Hamilton up until lap 15.
What happened at the pitstops?
Button and co were the first to pit, they arrived at the pit lane and knew the SC was out so they came in. They pitted a lap earlier than everyone else.
Vettel and Hamilton arrived in the pits, but Alonso was nowhere to be seen. Alonso was in the pits as Hamilton and Vettel exited. But we were previously just a second behind Hamilton, where had we lost 15s to them?
We stacked our cars in the pits, and they did a fantastic job. Massa lost virtually nothing and they both got out quickly.
Vettel rejoined in P1, Hamilton in P2, but Alonso was way down and Massa in P17.
The Safety-Car trouble
Vettel was quick, he passed the safety car before it even came out of the main pit exit. Hamilton backed off on the pit straight, unsure whether to pass or not. Then he suddenly decided to bolt and overtook the Safety Car after the SC exit line. Alonso stayed back behind the safety car, as per the rules.
Alonso complained on the radio and sounded pretty angry, the team telling him to calm down on more than one occasion.
Hamilton's Penalty and the outcome
The Stewards investigated the incident and found Hamilton to be guilty. We all knew about the incident after about 2 minutes, but for some reason the Stewards took about 20 laps to realise what he had done. Why? They are a large team of people who have access to every replay on every car from every angle. They didn't see it, yet we all knew he had done something to have gained all that time. The FIA and Stewards were shocking yet again.
They decided to give him a drive through penalty. Which would have been fine if they'd given it after a lap or two laps, but they took far, far longer. By this point, Hamilton had pulled a huge gap on Alonso who was stuck in traffic. The penalty therefore had basically no effect, putting Hamilton just 15 seconds behind the leader and still in P2.
Red Bull gives you wings, or rather, Kovalainen does
Let's just be sure here, the incident was just a racing incident, however bad it was.
Alonso was in the slipstream of the Lotus, which is already down on top-speed and at the time was lapping about 4 seconds per lap slower than Webber. Webber wasn't expecting Kovalainen to brake so early, he brakes at about 110 metres, compared to Webbers 100m/95m. The closing speed was phenomenal, Webber had no chance to avoid and ended up creaming into the back of the Lotus, taking off, flipping, hitting the advertising hoarding, rolling, before eventually sliding at high speed into the wall.
That was a 190mph+ accident, yet Webber was immediately furious, out of the car and walking away. However much we dislike some of the crazy safety regulations, the way that monocoque held up was incredible. Hardly any damage, all things considered. And thank goodness for the run-offs, which probably slowed his speed by 80mph before he bounced off the tyres.
The rest of the race
Our pace wasn't bad, neither was McLaren's or Red Bulls - but they weren't tucked up in a far slower group. Before the Safety Car, Alonso was quickest of all, but behind these slower cars, we were unable to pass. Getting past a Force India with great straight line speed is near impossible anywhere, but even harder here. All we could do was bring the car home or wait for mistakes.
Backmarkers
Yet again, they were pretty shocking. Nearly costing Kobayashi a place to Button because of their continued scrap. The HRT and Virgin cars in that incident should have been penalised, not only for not moving out of the way of the leaders despite being blue flagged, but for such poor driving.
9 cars under investigation
9 cars were put under investigation after the race due to not hitting their delta lap time when the Safety Car was deployed. Button was the big name involved in the investigation. The outcome of this is still to be decided. The Safety Car is there for a reason, respecting the rules under it should be a priority, so if they aren't penalised then it's yet another poor decision from the stewards.
The Championship
We fell yet further back after this race. Hamilton leads from Button on 127 and 121 points respectively, with the Red Bulls of Vettel and Webber in P3 and P4. Alonso takes P5 in the championship, sitting 31 points behind the leader. Whilst this isn't a massive margin under the new points system, it remains too big of a difference, we shouldn't be this far behind. We've been incredibly unlucky in 5 races so far this season and out position in the championship doesn't reflect the results we should have had.
Hamilton cheating
We spoke about this after the previous race, but he's had about 4 reprimands so far this season and then today the diabolical Safety Car moment. He got penalised today, but the outcome of the penalty meant he might as well not have had it, it made zero difference to the result - where it should have. If Alonso was P9, Hamilton should have been with him, not in P2.
I'm completely fed up of the number of times he gets warnings and no penalties, or penalties that aren't in line with the infraction. How many times does he have to do these things before someone actually makes an effort to penalise him properly? People say Schumacher was bad, that he made many errors but I see more coming from Hamilton than I ever did from Schumacher.
After the race, during the weigh-in, he spoke to Vettel about the contact into Turn 1. He essentially told Vettel it was his fault, when it clearly wasn't. He was then asked about the Safety Car incident, to which he replied "I don't remember much about it". Fed up of this lying, cheating, smug, arrogant little prat.
:-)