To my utter
astonishment the other day I discovered that this will be the 9th
Chinese Grand Prix. And there was me thinking this was a new-ish race on the F1
calendar. I do have a blurry memory of Schumacher winning one race in China and
more recently various McLarens winning and…er…that’s pretty much it. Now I know
I have lost random chunks of time in recent years due to the arrival of the
sprogs (who never seem to appreciate the need for peace and quiet during
sporting events) but surely not every Chinese GP bit the dust under an
avalanche of nappies and wails. Turns out there were 3 whole Chinese GPs before
the first sprog was a twinkle in the husband's eye. Lets face it the races in
China are generally a bit meh and are somewhat lacking in the yacht/glamour
quotient which might otherwise elevate a boring, processional race (like Monaco
can sometimes be) into a Must Keep Watching event.
To prove my
F1 credentials (and basically to give everyone a laugh), there is a photo of me at the 1999
British Grand Prix (but you have to read/scroll to the end of the blog first!).
Next time I shall dig out one of the husband so he can stop sniggering!
As that
great sage of our age Nico Hulkenberg put it “it’s not my favourite race of the
year”. For that read ‘boring and bland’ but Nico H is far too polite (or
rather, paid vast sums of money) to be rude about the Chinese GP. Sorry, the
2012 Formula 1 UBS Chinese Grand Prix. See what I mean? Spa, it ain't. And
you know who I think is to blame? Obviously I’m not going to say Bernie in case
he knows where I live. So take a bow, Hermann Tilke, the designer of the
track in Shanghai. It would appear that Mr Tilke has been a very busy man for
he is responsible for giving the world the following circuits: Sepang, Bahrain,
Istanbul, Singapore, Valencia, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, India and coming to a TV
near you this November, the brilliantly named 'Circuit of the Americas' track
for the new US Grand Prix in Texas. I'm already having worrying premonitions
that we might be treated to a special ‘Dallas’ segment on the Beeb’s build-up before
that race with Eddie Jordan decked out as JR Ewing…or actually maybe he is more
a Cliff Barnes? Ooops had better swiftly return to F1 before I get carried away
(the husband knows of my obsession with Dallas and will be fearing the worst so
I’ll leave it there – no promises come Texas though!).
It caused
great excitement when Michael Schumacher went fastest in practice yesterday (so
the 4 year old will watch a F1 practice session over breakfast but ordinarily
has an epic meltdown if I have the audacity on a school-day to flick onto the
news or whatever dross is on Daybreak). Now he can vaguely read, he has worked
out that MSC stands for Schumacher so we are treated to a constant stream of
updates (Schumacher is 9th, 10th, 5th etc). So
we get to watch F1 with our very own in-house Schumacher Watch (eat your heart
out Sky Towers) and support our child’s education all in one go. Winner!
In other eve-of-qualifying
news, the FIA has rejected Lotus’ protest about the Mercedes’ Innovative and
Controversial Rear Wing™.
Of course they did! Silly Lotus for wasting everyone’s time. Can’t they just
settle down and concentrate on having a nice, normal race weekend with no
hospitality fires or flash floods for a change. Apparently we may be in for
some rain this weekend so expect shots a-plenty of the Weather Monitor of Doom.
Normally not many
things irk me more than being awake at stupid o’clock on Saturday morning when
everyone else in the house is still asleep. However as I zoomed through my
timeline on Twitter under the duvet, I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to
Sky Plus the Beeb’s qualifying (live coverage for the first time this season).
After weighing up the alternatives for a nanosecond of watching Lovely Jake Humphrey
or dull dull dull Simon Lazenby, I sprinted downstairs and flicked on the Beeb.
I’m sure the husband would have cast a vote for Georgie Thompson and her come
hither eyes (I nearly wept for the poor woman interviewing the no-nonsense Patrick
Head the other day) but hey that’s the price he pays for having a lie-in.
For those
who might not have seen qualifying yet, Do Not Adjust Your TV Set. Eddie Jordan
really was wearing an 80s-tastic purple paisley shirt. Still at least he showed
some originality – Jake and DC are stuck in a never-ending metrosexual
timewarp of pink shirts.
Also it
looks like the Bahrain GP will be taking place in a week’s time after all.
Luckily all the unrest from the Arab Spring in 2011 that led to that year’s
race being cancelled is all over and done with. Oh hang on its still going on.
But to be fair, I never did have Bernie down as some kind of human rights
crusader. According to Bernie, he knows people who live there (the royal
family?) and ‘it’s all very quiet and peaceful’. Lovely jubbly. We’ll gloss
over pictures of protestors currently burning Bernie flags and dressed up in F1
overalls carrying machine guns.
Anyway it
was time to drop the proverbial trousers and get Q1 underway. Poor old Lewis
has been given a 5 place grid penalty for changing his gearbox so already the
highest position he can start from is 6th place. All the cars came
out, trundled around, did their laps and by the end of Q1 we had an unlikely
fastest top three of Perez, Alonso and Grosjean (or Crashjean as I sometimes
think of him). Bet Stefano Domenicali was wishing he had told his
employment lawyer to go ahead with the ‘you’re fired’ letter to Felipe Massa.
Its safe to say its in the pending tray.
As always things got much more interesting in Q2 (I might have
fast-forwarded parts of Q1) and the two Mercedes cars were looking mighty fast
(whoops of joy all round, ok it was just the 4 year old and me!). The Big Story
(as the Beeb told us over and over again) was that none other than Sebastian
Vettel (the current F1 champion and the best driver to ever come out of Germany
since...er…Michael Schumacher who is currently much faster than him but anyway)
did NOT make the cut for the top 10 shoot-out. To compound Seb’s misery, his
team-mate Mark Webber topped the timesheet for Q2 ahead of the two Mercedes.
Who’da thunk it (certainly not Vettel anyway). Personally I think things might
have gone wrong when he called his 2012 Red Bull ‘Abbey’. What kind of name is
that for a car? I liked Luscious Liz. It had a pleasing ring to it.
And so the unbearable tension was almost over and we were into Q3
(WITHOUT SEBASTIAN VETTEL) just in case anyone had suddenly been shunted off to
Mars or slipped into a coma for the last 15 minutes. Far less surprising was
the news that Massa had failed to make the top 10. Again. Somewhere in Maranello
an employment lawyer is being called into the office on a Saturday.
Who would finish where was anyone’s guess as (stat alert!) we were told
that 3/10ths covered the top 10 drivers. Schumacher Watch was in full swing – would
Michael get his first pole in 6 years? Then all of a sudden, Nico Rosberg put
in a blistering lap to smash everyone else’s time and take provisional pole.
There was a great bit where Schuey radioed to ask what was Nico’s lap-time and
when told, said ‘not bad’. According to DC it was very significant that Schuey
asked this question because it showed all he was concerned about was his
team-mate. Er, no David you dingbat. I think Schuey had just worked out that
the only person who could beat him to pole was Nico (especially as Lewis had a
5 place demotion looming). So the line-up for tomorrow is 1. Rosberg, 2. Lewis, 3.
Schumacher, 4. Kobayashi, 5. Raikkonen, 6. Button. But as Hamilton will start in
7th place, this means we have an all-Mercedes front row for the
first time since 1955 (name that driver line-up if you will!). All hail the
genius that is Sir Ross Brawn (if he isn’t a Sir, then he frigging well should
be knighted pronto!). I cannot wait for the start tomorrow. Its going to be
MEGA.
No comments:
Post a Comment