Singaporean Grand Prix: Slipping and sliding in the streets!

It's fair to say that we were robbed of a battle between Hamilton and Rosberg today, because Nico was plagued, from the very start, with car problems. As the drivers streamed away from the start line, to begin their parade lap, Rosberg's Mercedes sat prone on the front row, his hands turning the wheel to full lock left and right and pressing the buttons and gear paddles. He eventually managed a pit lane start, but even then was struggling for pace and it quickly became evident that his car was automatically doing double upshifts and so not gaining enough traction out of the turns. He made a valiant effort to keep his race going, without any moaning or complaining (unlike a certain other driver we know) but in the end was forced to retire. Despite a change of steering wheel, during his pitstop, it simply wasn't enough to heal the cars hurts, as Nico continually flapped the gear paddles with no response from the gearbox. Some would claim that, in the luck stakes, this race has evened things up between the Mercedes teammates, but I don't think anybody wants to see an easy race for an unchallenged Mercedes man this season.


Okay, so it wasn't the easiest of races for Lewis Hamilton, but it threatened to be more difficult than it actually turned out to be. He left the Red Bull's for dead, straight out of the blocks, and then comfortably lead the race, right up until the one safety car period of the race. Sergio Perez had a coming together with Adrian Sutil, on lap thirty, and the resulting obliterated front wing prompted the characteristic appearance of a Singaporean GP safety car. It meant that during the second half of the race, it gradually became apparent that almost everybody had made their final pitstops of the race, all except for Hamilton. Because of this he was forced to drive his socks off, in order to make a gap large enough to allow him to pit and get out in front again. He had to build a twenty-seven second gap, within around only ten laps. It was an almost impossible task. Not, it seems, for a Mercedes F1 car and Lewis Hamilton. He managed a twenty-five second gap and came out just behind Sebastien Vettel and only had to make that one pass to take the lead again. With Seb on very old tyres, the job was done within two laps. However, Lewis Hamilton only just loses out on the Driver of The Day accolade.

Driver of The Day, instead, goes to Jean-Eric Vergne for his fearless racing, during the final couple of laps. Because of an earlier misdemeanour, Vergne had been slapped with a five second stop and go penalty. As the closing laps of the race approached and it was obvious that the five seconds were going to be added to his finishing time, he became wild. He caught and took both Force India cars, the Ferrari of Kimi Raikonnen and the Williams of Valtteri Bottas. He did this by virtually sliding around the four cars, racing right up to and almost over the ragged edge, on tyres with about as little grip as anyone else. He then proceeded to pull out a gap that was more than five seconds, meaning that, even with the penalty, he had secured sixth place.

The good thing about Nico's bad luck today, is that the fight for the World Championship is very much alive, with the two Mercedes drivers separated by only three points. The really great thing about this season is that it isn't only about the two horse race for the Driver's Championship, the passion and hunger is evident throughout the whole field.


Check out The Singaporean GP podcast and listen to The F1 Spectator himself.
The Result:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	60	2:00:04.795	1	25
2	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	60	+13.5 secs	4	18
3	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	60	+14.2 secs	3	15
4	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	60	+15.3 secs	5	12
5	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	60	+42.1 secs	6	10
6	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	60	+56.8 secs	12	8
7	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	60	+59.0 secs	15	6
8	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	60	+60.6 secs	7	4
9	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	60	+61.6 secs	13	2
10	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	60	+62.2 secs	9	1
11	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	60	+65.0 secs	8
12	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	60	+66.9 secs	18
13	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	60	+68.0 secs	16
14	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	60	+72.0 secs	10
15	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	60	+94.1 secs	22
16	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	60	+94.5 secs	19
17	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	59	+1 Lap	21
Ret	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	52	+8 Laps	11
Ret	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	40	+20 Laps	17
Ret	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	17	+43 Laps	14
Ret	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	13	+47 Laps	2
DNS	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	0	DNS	20

Chinese Grand Prix: a tyreing day in Shanghai

Pirelli tyres played a massive part once again, but excitement is what F1 is all about and Pirelli bring that. If the tyres were predictable, then the teams would all choose the same tyres, at the same time, and we would be left with a relative procession, complete with scheduled pit stops. Approaching the closing stages of the race it became apparent that Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button, each had to make one more stop, to use the soft tyre. Soon after that realisation it became apparent that on fresh tyres their pace would be greatly increased. What transpired was a a nail biting finish, in which Button passed Massa and then found that he had to defend against the Brazilian, whilst Vettel proceeded to hunt Lewis Hamilton down and unbelievably made up around thirteen seconds in two laps. He actually finished just two hundredths of a second behind the Brit, with Lewis only just holding on to the well deserved third podium place.

Sebastian managed to salvage fourth place from the difficult ninth that he qualified in. Webber was less fortunate in his attempt at salvaging something from his torrid qualifying result. As a consequence of running out of fuel in the qualies, Mark was forced to start from the pit lane. He began on the soft tyre, which gave him the opportunity to pit after the first lap and go on to the harder tyre for the remainder of the race. However, he ruined the race for himself when he took a wild dive up the inside of Vergne, where there was a limited passing opportunity, and damaged his front wing forcing him to pit again. His luck worsened fatally when, in his pit stop, his right rear tyre was not attached properly and the Aussie had to retire from the race.

It was a race packed with incident, with a number of drivers making contact with each other. Sutil had a bump with his team mate, Di Resta, on the first lap, which almost ended both their races. A few laps later Sutil then became involved in an incident that was completely out of his control, when Gutierrez came careening down to the final hairpin. Gutierrez took off his own front right wheel and, in the process, caused terminal damage to the rear wing and rear suspension of Sutil's car. Some have called it Karma, I think that's a little harsh.

The race win went to Alonso, who was clearly over the moon about the result. It's rare to see such a reaction from the Spaniard, but with Ferrari's preseason pace being below par, the whole team will be relieved to find that they are still one of the strong title contenders. Kimi Raikonnen had another solid performance in his competitive Lotus, finishing in second. Mercedes looked strong as well, despite Hamilton being unable to hold his lead against the Ferrari's, in the opening laps, and Rosberg having to retire mid race. Their pace looked good and it will be interesting to watch them peg back the front runners in future races. The big success story for me was Ricciardo, in the Toro Rosso, who carried his qualifying performance in to the race to achieve his best finish in Formula One, so far. He finished in a respectable seventh position after qualifying seventh. It seems that it might be shaping up to be the season of the underdog.