Ok here’s the
thing. I think I might have called F1 races in China a bit ‘meh’ in my
qualifying blog. But then what do I know? It turned out to be a frigging
brilliant Chinese Grand Prix full of (shock horror) wheel to wheel racing from
beginning to end. Mind you, it does lack yachts and the bling factor. At least
I got that bit right.
So after much
debate (me to the husband at 7am “lets watch it on the Beeb” though I can’t
actually remember if the husband responded), I merrily jettisoned the Sky
offering and Just Pressed One (as Jake would say and indeed does say a lot on
Twitter). This might not have been my smartest move ever but stay with me for
the ride. We started off with a strange little intro entitled ‘F1 and the city’
featuring Jake Humphrey, Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard. I’m not sure if this
was a pastiche on Sex in the City but who knows as I have never watched it
(which probably makes me an outcast among womenkind). Maybe it was a spoof on
some other supremely cool cult film that has passed me by. I fear it will
forever remain a mystery to me. Tell you what though, a ‘Dallas’ segment with
Eddie is absolutely nailed on for the US Grand Prix.
We then had a
very bizarre film basically where Jake, Eddie and DC all went shopping and had
jackets made for each other. Yes, it really was that weird. This metrosexual
thing is getting out of hand. Not sure this was the best way for the Beeb to
kickstart its ‘live’ coverage for the season. DC looked physically ill when he
had to put on his jacket in the pitlane which had the loudest car print you
have ever seen. This is a man who is a Disciple of white jeans and pink shirts
and literally has nothing else in his wardrobe. Heck he probably has more white
jeans than Liz Hurley.
Next up, we
had some footage of Keke Rosberg (father of little Nico, today’s pole-sitter) which
got the husband wildly excited because it was from Brands Hatch in 1982 (ie.
back when the husband was young.) Then we saw DC’s first pole. Yawn. One
interesting thing that emerged was that it was arguably better to qualify 2nd
for this race as it was generally felt that pole was positioned on the wrong
side of the track. A less suspicious person would almost think the person who
had qualified 2nd on the grid had done so deliberately but its hard
to believe such a thing of Michael Schumacher. There was a brief interview
between Lee McKenzie and Schuey which had to be rewinded about 5 times for the
benefit of the 4 year old. I think Schuey has a soft spot for our Lee ever
since she took part in that western-style horseriding ‘reining’ competion at
the Schumacher Ranch. I bet Michael is a mahoosive Dallas fan too. The Texas
Grand Prix will be out of control.
The Beeb had
been rifling through the old Blue Peter archives as you do and had dug up some
footage of a very young Lewis Hamilton racing remote control cars. So then to
show us how relaxed and fun he really is, Lewis raced some more remote control
cars around McLaren HQ with Jake Humphrey. Maybe it was just me but it felt a
little bit ‘Top Gear’. This is not a good thing.
Anyway back
to the Chinese GP (the BBC producer is more prone to going off on daft tangents
than me!). A little box came up telling us the track temperature was 286°
before someone spotted the typo (along with millions of viewers) and corrected
the temperature to a far more boring twentysomething degrees.
Still chin
up, it was time for DC’s first gridwalk – I had grave doubts as to how this was
going to bear up to the legendary Martin Brundle Gridwalk™. The fate of the BBC
coverage (for us anyway) might hinge on the next 10 minutes. My scrawly notes
simply say ‘Button, Kobayashi, Newey, Webber. BORING’. Poor old DC – he really
was a fish out of water and by the end he was just scrabbling around
interviewing his Red Bull mates (he used to drive for Red Bull you know –
before they were good) with a deeply annoying faulty microphone. Its safe to
say he is no David Frost or indeed Martin Brundle. Just when you thought things
couldn’t get any worse, the producer in a moment of utter insanity decided to
cross over to Eddie Jordan who was seemingly taking over the gridwalk mantle.
First up, a quick word with Jean Todt, a man who seems to become more small and
sinister with age – in fact the husband did absentmindedly comment on how
Balestre was being interviewed. The poor love is stuck in the 1980s (the
husband not Jean Todt). Then Eddie just started some long monologue culminating
in some some horrifically cringy speech about much he adored and loved Frank
Williams (yes really). Probably my personal highlight of Eddie’s gridwalk was
his attempt to interview Charlie Whiting. “Can we have a few words”. “No”. It
was desperate stuff.
Quick confer
with the husband (occasionally it happens) and we decided to jump ship (ie. off
the Titanic) and switch over to Sky. We were just in time for the Martin
Brundle Gridwalk™ which was just immediately SO much better.
Unfortunately we had to see Jean Todt being interviewed again but Martin did
manage to interview Bernie which is always good value. I shudder to think how a
Bernie/Eddie interview would have gone. Bernie said he would like to see
Michael win. Some things never change! Martin was unable to interview Nico
Rosberg who was talking to a Race Start Strategy Guy – who knew such jobs
existed? Interestingly Johnny Herbert was there with Simon Thingy and not Damon
Hill. Hmmmm. What can be we conclude from this? Hmmmm, Johnny was doing a great
job but I love Damon so I’m not going to say anything more. Suddenly realised
we hadn’t had our Random Celebrity at a Race then Mika Hakkinen popped up. Its
not much but he’ll do for this week.
So it was
time. The Schumacher Watch (ie. the 4 year old) was in place, the Race Start
Strategy Guy had imparted his wisdom (‘drive fast and stay in the lead’) and it
was GO GO GO. After predicting carnage at the start (with my beady eye trained
on Kobayashi) , there was in fact no carnage and no crashes. Button had a
fantastic start and was up in 3rd place. Poor Kobayashi was just
slipping off the radar after his great qualifying. Vettel had an awful start
and was down to 15th place. A few laps in, he complained that he
just couldn’t get past Paul Di Resta (its Di Resta for heaven’s sake, not
Fangio). Life is tough isn’t it, Seb, when you don’t have the best car…welcome
to Narain Karthikeyan’s world.
As Rosberg
pulled away from the pack, there was an almighty scrap for 2nd place
between Schuey, Button, Kimi, Lewis and Perez. The two McLarens pitted quite
early on and Lewis was wheel to wheel with Kimi in the pitlane. This really
could have ended up messily but Lewis just inched ahead leaving Kimi to get
tangled up with Webber.
Then Schuey
came in for his first pitstop. Just as I was thinking (I kid you not) how
brilliant it was going to be to see Schuey on the podium again, the next thing
we saw was Schuey’s car pulling over onto some grass and he was OUT OF THE
RACE. This was a tragedy. The only crumb of comfort being I wasn’t listening to
DC who probably was commentating on this development with barely disguised
glee. I had to break the news to the 4 year old who burst into tears and said
“Michael Schumacher never, ever wins”. It occurred to me that he might actually
see Schuey as some kind of plucky ‘Johnny Herbert’ underdog and maybe that’s
why he likes him. Oh the irony. Apparently it was due to an untightened
wheel-nut. Who cares, my dream of a Schuey podium was in tatters and I had a
hysterical 4 year old who no longer wanted the Grand Prix on. Still there was a
race to watch and so the 4 year old was overruled much to his distress.
By lap 15,
Perez was in the lead after Rosberg pitted but as he cruised around dreaming of
Ferraris and Tuscan villas, mini-disaster struck and he locked up a wheel.
Ironically this meant that Massa temporarily led the race. Enjoy it while it
lasts my friend. Eventually Massa pitted and slid back to a position of
nothingness. To the obvious amazement of Brundle and Croft, Rosberg was driving
very well and looking like he might well win this race. The two McLarens behind
him in 2nd and 3rd came in for hard tyres so by lap 28,
the front-runners were 1. Rosberg, 2. Kimi, 3. Grosjean, 4. Vettel (how did
that happen?), 5. Perez and 6. Button. How on earth was Rosberg staying out so
long? Eventually on lap 35, Rosberg pitted no doubt in line with a Ross Brawn
Genius Strategy and came out 2nd behind Jenson Button. Hamilton
meanwhile was stuck behind Perez who was driving the wheels off his Sauber and
not in any way trying to impress anyone back in Maranello.
With classic
Murray Walker timing, just after Button got a message saying he was still in
this race to win, he had a disastrous pitstop on lap 39 and ended up rejoining
in 6th place. The husband was noticeably distraught (he has a
man-crush on JB, say no more). Rosberg was being warned to look after his tyres
otherwise the Ross Brawn Genius Strategy would be all in vain (I might have
ad-libbed the last bit). Everywhere you looked, there were cars wheel to
wheel – it was absolutely awesome stuff. All those clever suits who came with
new rules, we salute you!
So by lap 44,
it was 1. Rosberg, 2. Kimi, 3. Vettel (still confused about how this happened!)
and 4. Button. There was another stonking battle for 2nd going on.
For all we knew, Rosberg could have won as it was so long since we had seen
him. We were told he could still pit and take the lead. Its as if Ross Brawn
had devised the strategy. Oh yeh he did. Then on lap 49, Kimi’s tyres just fell
off a cliff and he started skidding backwards and in the space of a lap had
dropped from 2nd to 12th. Oh dear.
It was
basically then total pandemonium – everyone was top of everyone else trying to
overtake as if their lives depended on it. Remember those races where no one
overtook and they were ‘won’ in the pits. They were dark days. Finally Button
got past Vettel with an audacious move and there was a highly amusing radio
message from his engineers telling him to pull away before Lewis got past
Vettel. Either they rate Lewis or they know Vettel has turned into Kevin the
Teenager or both. Sure enough, on the penultimate lap, Lewis passed Vettel for
2nd place. Remembering there was some dude driving a Mercedes in the
lead, we just managed to rejoin Nico as he won the Chinese GP and his very
first race in F1. Schumacher feigned joy on the pit-lane but that must have
been very hard to take. Those poor Mercedes mechanics won’t get a minute’s
sleep until Bahrain. Never mind having to face Schuey, imagine how cross Bernie
is with them all. I wouldn’t like to ever see a cross Bernie.
So here are the results from the Chinese Grand Prix 2012:
1.
Rosberg – a
commanding drive and will be interesting to see how he performs now he has the
‘first race win’ monkey off his back.
2.
Button –
oddly for Jenson, he seemed very dejected…he should go and sink a beer with
Michael and compare useless mechanics.
3.
Hamilton –
his 3rd third place of the season and is now leading the
Championship. Crikey!
4.
Webber –
ahead of Seb…bet Mark likes that. A lot.
5.
Vettel –
what’s gone wrong dude?
6.
Grosjean –
well done that man.
So lots of
happy Mercedes bods and happiest of all might have been Norbert Haug. I think
our Norb has been on a bit of a diet – there’s definitely less of him these
days. He was up on the podium where possibly the most hideous trophies ever in
the history of motorsport were handed out. They are just like those robotic ‘techno
trousers’ from Wallace and Gromit that the evil penguin stole.
But trophies aside, what a
brilliant, brilliant humdinger of a race. The drivers loved driving it (except
for Schumacher, sob). We loved watching it. Its shaping up to be a vintage F1
season. See you all bunkered down in Bahrain!
Great blog! Agree that Sky's coverage is better than BBC, the pundits were cringeworthy. Surely Jake will rejoin Martin soon?
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with being stuck in the 80's, BTW. Ground effects, Villeneuve, Senna, Piquet, Mansell, Lauda, Turbos, John Player Specials. Happy days.
Thanks Anonymous for your comment. I'm not really old enough to remember Villeneuve (Gilles) but I've seen some old footage and he was a very exciting driver to watch :-)
DeleteNot convinced by Sky's coverage - the pre/post race stuff is pretty dismal to be honest. Brundle is the only one holding it all together for me.
Excellent blog on a fantastic race! Personally I'm finding the battles between team mates to be the most compelling element at the moment - Webber/Vettel is as tense as ever; Button/Hamilton are hugely different drivers; and poor old Schumie must be getting fed up of playing second best to Rosberg!
ReplyDeleteLet's hope the horribly messy politics in Bahrain don't overshadow the racing excitement...
Thanks Nick. Glad you enjoyed the blog! Everyone seems much more bunched together at the top this season - 10 points only separating the top 5 in the drivers championship (and that's not even including Rosberg, Kimi and Grosjean). Very difficult to predict who will come out on top which is great for F1 fans!
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