Hungary Grand Prix: Qualifying

The talking point in the run up to the Hungarian Grand Prix was the track surface temperature and a few nervous rumblings regarding the Pirelli tyres and the fear that we may have a repeat of the ludicrous events of Silverstone. Nothing materialised in the qualifying session but we will have to wait and see what happens in the race.

The first session was relatively predictable, with the exception of Di Resta's exit. Di Resta's poor fortunate, that saw him drop out in the first session, was a precursor to Force India's turn of luck this weekend. Sutil was knocked out at the end of the second session and the two Force India drivers will find it difficult to achieve much in the race from outside of the top ten. It was McLaren's Sergio Perez who threw up the surprise that bumped Sutil out of the top ten in the final seconds of Q2. He outpaced his teammate, Jenson Button, once again, as Button's woes deepen and the he continues to watch his contention for the title dwindle.

It was yet another Mercedes versus Red Bull fight, in the final session of qualifying. Sebastian Vettel's strategists made a smart move by saving a fresh set of option tyres, for one very quick lap, halfway through the session. Nobody was able to quite match Vettel's earlier time, as the chequered flag flew for each of them. That was of course until Lewis Hamilton put in his final quick lap. He pipped Sebastian to pole and despite Seb's best efforts he was unable to retake the top spot. It was an exciting end to the Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying, regardless of the familiar result. Will Mercedes race pace continue to improve in to Sunday's grand prix?

Qualifying result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	01:19.388	15
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	01:19.426	12
3.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	01:19.595	15
4.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	01:19.720	16
5.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	01:19.791	15
6.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus	01:19.851	17
7.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	01:19.929	15
8.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	01:20.641	14
9.	Sergio Perez	McLaren	01:22.398	16
10.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	no time	13
11.	Adrian Sutil	Force India	01:20.569	17
12.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber	01:20.580	13
13.	Jenson Button	McLaren	01:20.777	10
14.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	01:21.029	12
15.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	01:21.133	15
16.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	01:21.219	13

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

German Grand Prix: Qualifying

The predictability of qualifying was set to continue at the Nurburgring this weekend, as the Mercedes cars displayed their usual great pace and dominated the first session. Things fell apart, for Rosberg at least, when he was pitted at the end of the second session and sat watching his name tumble down the order, as car after car slammed in faster times than him. The track conditions obviously changed in the closing laps and Mercedes were simply caught out. It's difficult to know who to  blame for the failed gamble, but it's interesting to consider that there will be somebody in the Mercedes garage whose job it is to predict changes in track conditions.


In the end it was Lewis Hamilton who lead the Mercedes team to another great pole position, just pipping Sebastian Vettel to the top spot. The Mercedes is looking better and better in race set up and so the team and Hamilton will be hoping that things can keep developing in that direction. The Red Bull drivers will be breathing down Lewis' neck at the start of the race, in second and third, and Lewis will be up against it from the off.

The Ferrari's showed a lot more pace than they have in the last couple of races. However, here in Germany, they have shown a lot more conviction and despite finishing seventh and eighth were very strong in the first two sessions. They always show good race pace so, combined with the reasonable grid positions, we  may see a really good result from Alonso and Massa, launching them back in to the title fight.

As long as the tyres can remain intact, after being reinforced with Kevlar and redesigned, then it looks like we are in for a fantastic race.

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

  

British GP: Qualifying

As the start of qualifying for the British Grand Prix approached, the people who really understand the venue were beginning to find all the praise and outpouring of love tiresome. The Silverstone supporters, in the media and influential positions, shamelessly plugged the troubled circuit, whilst fans were again frustrated by the venue's deficiencies. The fact is, a huge amount of money has been hurled at the complete overhaul of the paddock and pit area, whilst fans still find themselves wading through mud and having to put up with sub standard facilities. All of this to watch Formula One cars driving around one of the less spectacular circuits on the calendar.

Qualifying is becoming a bit of a foregone conclusion, as again both the Mercedes performed dominantly in all three sessions and Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg filled out the front row. Its nice to see Hamilton on pole at his home grand prix, however I and many others would have put money on that outcome, whilst predicting that both drivers will struggle to hold on to those positions come the start of the race. The Red Bull's were third and fourth and the Force India drivers looked strong again as well, qualifying in fifth and seventh.

The only real surprises were the performances of the McLarens and Ferraris, with Button, Perez and Massa, failing to make it to Q3, and Alonso only managing tenth in the top ten shootout. It's uncharacteristic for Ferrari to be struggling for pace, with Alonso being a definite title contender. McLaren, on the other hand, are continuing to decline this season and its especially sad to see it happen so spectacularly at Silverstone.

However, the big story of the weekend is Mark Webber's retirement from Formula One and the speculation over his replacement. Mark Webber was an honourable competitor and a very fair and professional sportsman and will be missed by many, if not the Vettel collective. Mark Webber regularly ruffled the feathers of Vettel and his supporters and I wonder if Webber's predecessor will be more placatory and prone to rolling over and letting Sebastian have his own way.