German Grand Prix: Keep rolling, rolling, rolling...

It would seem, on paper, that the result was decided from the start, with Vettel taking to the lead at the first corner and then going on to claim his first home win. It wasn't as straight forward as it would appear. A safety car on lap twenty-five threatened to scupper his race, when the entire field was bunched together, following an incident involving Luis Bianchi's Marussia race car.

On lap twenty-five Bianchi's engine let go in a huge plume of thick white smoke and proceeded to ignite in to licking flames. The Marussia would not have a been a problem and the safety car would not have been called in to action, had the car not started rolling backwards, down the back straight, towards oncoming traffic. It rolled across the circuit and came to a halt on the opposite side of the track, when it struck an advertising hording. Unfortunately for Seb and a few other drivers, the safety car had already been sent out at this point and it served to make the end of the race a little too close for their comfort.

By the end of the race it was a battle of the soft tyres versus the options, as the drivers who pitted on lap fifty, with only ten laps remaining, closed in on opponents on older tyres. Massa was excluded from the hunt, that saw his team mate Alonso catching and passing Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, because he had an apparently unforced spin on the first corner, resulting in his retirement.
Grosjean was instructed to allow his team mate, Kimi Raikonnen, to come past him and Kimi subsequently took the fight to Sebastian Vettel, making for a nail biting end to the race, for the Red Bull Racing crew at least. He was unable to make up enough time in the end, but got to within one second of the young German as they went through the final corner.

The big talking point was the incident in the pit lane, involving Mark Webber's Red Bull car. He had made a routine pit stop, during the first half of the Grand Prix, and was looking to come out in first place and challenge his team mate for the win. There were a couple of mistakes, firstly with getting the right rear wheel on to the car and then with the teams garage lights informing Mark that he could leave his pit box. The tyre came away from the car and bounced through a couple of pit crews and crashed in to an unsuspecting cameraman. The cameraman was rushed to hospital and, it has been revealed, he has a fractured shoulder and a number of broken ribs. It has also been revealed that Red Bull Racing have been fined 30,000 euro for the incident. I agree with that decision, since too many teams are simply releasing their cars, in too much of a hurry, under unsafe circumstances. Lets hope other teams learn from this incident as well and we can wipe this sort of thing out sooner rather than later.

 Race result:

1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:41:14.711
2.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus	+1.008
3.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	+5.830
4.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+7.721
5.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+26.927
6.	Jenson Button	McLaren	+27.996
7.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	+37.562
8.	Sergio Perez	McLaren	+38.306
9.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	+46.821
10.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber	+49.892
11.	Paul di Resta	Force India	+53.771
12.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	+56.975
13.	Adrian Sutil	Force India	+57.738
14.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber	+1:00.160
15.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	+1:01.929
16.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	+1 Lap
17.	Charles Pic	Caterham	+1 Lap
18.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham	+1 Lap
19.	Max Chilton	Marussia	+1 Lap
Did not finish
20.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	+38 Laps
21.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia	+39 Laps
22.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+57 Laps

British Grand Prix: full blown mayhem!

The British Grand Prix was explosive, but unfortunately not in the right way. At one point during the race I couldn't help thinking, it really should have been abandoned, as Pirelli tyres failed left right and centre, resulting in at least two drivers almost having very big crashes. Massa had a big spin when his tyre delaminated and exploded on one of the fastest corners of the circuit. During the first of two safety car periods, pundits, officials and teams were trying to work out exactly what was going on, through a combination of speculation, investigation and simple guess work. Could it have been a failure of the Pirelli tyres themselves? A particular corner on the circuit? Or simply the geometry of the track? As the race progressed it looked like things had been resolved, however a blowout for Sergio Perez, in the final few laps, proved otherwise. Should the race have been abandoned after the first three blowouts? I think so.

The beginning of the race saw Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, displaying some unusually good race pace. Rosberg lost second to Vettel, in to the first corner, but then both Mercedes cars kept up the pace very well. Webber had another characteristically bad start and dropped all the way from fourth down to fourteenth, whilst Massa engineered the opposite for himself, powering from thirteenth all the way up to fifth. Things were going well for him, up until the tyre failure that really scuppered his race.

It was Hamilton who experienced the curse of the tyres first, much to the disappointment of his adoring followers. To make matters worse, the blowout occurred right at the end of the lap and after the pit lane entrance, meaning he was forced to drive an entire lap on three wheels. It was a credit to Lewis that he was able to work his way all the way up to fourth place by the chequered flag.

The end of the race was extremely exciting. Rosberg put in a sterling effort to take the win and its nice to see Mercedes managing to convert a perfect qualifying result in to another win. Webber caused a lot of excitement by discovering some blistering pace and storming past car after car, to take second place. He almost managed to snatch the win from under Nico's nose, but in all fairness Rosberg didn't deserve for that to happen.

The biggest story of the race, for me, was the British fans displaying their lack of sportsmanship, at the apparent 'home of Formula One'. It was shameful to hear a huge roar go up as Sebastian Vettel suffered an engine failure on the home straight. I think what made it worse was the fact that, it wasn't the case that Vettel's cruel luck allowed a Brit, Hamilton or Button, to come through for the lead. It was the bitter jealousy and soreness that resulted in a crowd of baying patriotic Brits, jeering and mocking (and later booing) the brilliant young German driver. I think its time we moved on and put the boring and poorly managed 'home of Formula One' behind us, to enjoy some racing in a far more welcoming venue.

The Race Result:

1.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:32:59.456
2.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	+0.765
3.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+7.124
4.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+7.756
5.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus	+11.257
6.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+14.573
7.	Adrian Sutil	Force India	+16.335
8.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	+16.543
9.	Paul di Resta	Force India	+17.943
10.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber	+19.709
11.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	+21.135
12.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	+25.094
13.	Jenson Button	McLaren	+25.969
14.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber	+26.285
15.	Charles Pic	Caterham	+31.613
16.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia	+36.097
17.	Max Chilton	Marussia	+1:07.660
18.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham	+1:07.759
Did not finish
19.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	+1 Lap
20.	Sergio Perez	McLaren	+6 Laps
21.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	+11 Laps
22.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	+17 Laps

  

Monaco Grand Prix: Get in or go home, on the streets!

It was a case of do or die in Monaco this weekend, with lunatic plunges in to corners, specifically from some of the less experienced drivers in the field. There was very little respect shown to former world champions when it came to passing, as the likes of Perez and Sutil took the fight to seasoned racers like Button and Alonso. At times the race became quite processional, however despite this it was far from boring. It was extremely cagey for long periods, but kept you on the edge of your seat with the threat of exploding in to action, which it did, a number of times.

The big story of the race was the fantastic performance from Mercedes and, the race winner, Nico Rosberg. I have spoken about the very poor race pace of the Mercedes cars and also hinted at the fact that Nico and Lewis might have had the chance to hold the others behind them, around the tight streets of Monte Carlo. Far from that, they showed some very good pace, with Nico finishing the race a good distance ahead of the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton may have come in behind Rosberg, but for his poor luck during the first safety car period. He pitted with his team mate, on lap 30, after Massa had a massive smash on the first corner and the safety car was deployed. Nico Rosberg was able to leave the pits in to first place again, whilst Lewis Hamilton was released in to fourth, the two Mercedes cars split by the Red Bulls.

As to that drama at the front, things remained pretty much the same for the rest of the race. It was further back that things really got messy. It was back around fifth and then down the order that drivers were dicing and taking wild lunges at their rivals. Amazingly, one of the drivers in the limelight was Sergio Perez. I say amazingly because most of his crazy passing attempts were down in to the Nouvelle chicane, where a few years ago he had a huge crash in a Sauber. He had run ins with Button, Alonso and eventually came to grief when he went a step to far against Kimi Raikonnen and caused fatal damage to his own car.

Adrian Sutil flew the flag for Force India this weekend, taking similar risks to Perez, but ultimately being more successful. He managed to finish fifth and continues Force India's great season. Di Resta didn't fair too badly either, finishing in ninth place, just behind the battling pack that Sutil led over the line. Overall, it was a race of cagey and tightly strung processions, pock marked with short periods of high action and high risk. Plenty of incident, plenty of great racing and, thankfully, no rain; a thoroughly enjoyable Monaco Grand Prix.


Full Race result:

1.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	2:17:52.056
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	+3.800
3.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	+6.300
4.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+13.800
5.	Adrian Sutil	Force India	+21.400
6.	Jenson Button	McLaren	+23.100
7.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+26.700
8.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	+27.200
9.	Paul di Resta	Force India	+27.600
10.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus	+36.500
11.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber	+42.500
12.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	+42.600
13.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber	+43.200
14.	Max Chilton	Marussia	+49.800
15.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham	+1:02.500
Did not finish
16.	Sergio Perez	McLaren	+6 Laps
17.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	+15 Laps
18.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	+17 Laps
19.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia	+20 Laps
20.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	+34 Laps
21.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+50 Laps
22.	Charles Pic	Caterham	+71 Laps