Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Monaco GP – The Race


Mark Webber - he had a bonza race in Monaco
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

So I realised in my, ahem, slight hysteria, about Michael Schumacher getting pole position that I actually forgot in my previous blog to give the rest of the grid order for Sunday’s race. Ooops. I was just a little bit excited and might have been bashing out the blog on Saturday evening while partaking of a glass of wine or two while watching Eurovision. A dangerous mix. Imagine if Michael Schumacher even won a race again – you’d be lucky to discover from my blog who else even made it onto the podium! Still as that eventuality seems destined never to happen until Mercedes can actually provide Schuey with a car that doesn’t break down every single frigging race, you can all rest easy.

I still (and it is Wednesday, shameful I know) haven’t watched all of the build up – the blame for this can be placed solely on a not-at-all tedious visit to Homebase to buy endless bags of sand for the sprogs’ sand-pit and random plants chosen by the 4 year old which will probably all be dead this time next year. The husband vetoed the Beeb build-up and for once I was pretty much in agreement after their obsessive Schumacher-bashing the previous day. So we were straight in to ♯MartinsGridWalk for which I had high hopes given we were in uber-chic Monte Carlo crammed to the rafters with Beautiful People. We were told that the average life expectancy there is the highest in the world at 90. Not sure what we were meant to do with this nugget of information but its safe to say that if you are rich as Croesus then you do tend to have access to the best doctors on the planet. Ah the unfairness of life, or death (if you’re not fortunate enough to live in Monaco!).

Jools Holland, Random Celebrity at a Race
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Martin had quick chats (ie. 4 words) with both Nico Rosberg and Grosjean, then muscled his way into a getting a quick interview with Antonio Banderas who was there with his New Best Friend, Fernando Alonso. To be fair, Antonio was able to name at least three F1 drivers (Lauda, Senna and Prost) which is probably three more than Geri Halliwell could name. The grid was absolutely rammed to the extent that Martin just walked past Eric Clapton and Jools Holland. Maybe they’re just close personal friends of Martin so he doesn’t see them as celebs – whatever, they were all very matey and chummy. Eric Clapton was also aware of the Crucial First Corner at Monaco. There was a quick throw-away line from Martin to them at the end of “are you on the boat tonight” which I think confirms that Martin leads a pretty glitzy life behind that bloke-next-door exterior.

Then to my amazement, Martin interviewed the True Polesitter, Michael Schumacher. WTF? Michael never ever gives interviews on the grid. I immediately started to worry whether he was too relaxed in a ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ kind of way. Portent Alert.

Princess Charlene (lets hope she brought a good book for the race)
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

It turned out that the Dark Knight, Ron Dennis, was in Monaco. He was wearing quite a loud Cityboy shirt trying to pretend he was just there for the fun of the race but I reckon he has flown out to put the fear of god into the McLaren mechanics not to make any more mistakes. He is still a very scary man – there were a couple of death stares as ditsy Natalie interviewed him. We caught a brief glimpse of runaway-bride Princess Charlene hiding her sad eyes behind some large shades. Then Nicole Scherzinger told us how Lewis was really focused and happy. Nice try, Nicole, but we don’t really believe you. All in all, quite a disappointing Monaco Celebrity Pitlane. Maybe the global recession is biting or maybe the A-listers don’t want to venture forth from their swish hospitality tents in case a tiny speck of grease gets onto their designer clobber. Pah.

I have made a note here that the husband was droning on about brake ducts. He knew I wasn’t listening and bless him, he plugged away regardless.

So (I did get around to it eventually!) the Monaco grid lined up as follows: 1. Webber, 2. Rosberg, 3. Hamilton, 4. Grosjean, 5, Alonso, 6. Schumacher, 7. Massa, 8. Raikkonen, 9. Vettel, 10. Hulkenberg.

Time For The Start and Go Go Go...! The next bit I had to rewind and freeze-frame about 8 times to work out what had happened. Webber and Rosberg got away cleanly, Hamilton had a very poor start and as a result Alonso got stuck behind him and moved out into the path of Grosjean and they banged wheels. Grosjean in a classic rabbit-in-the-headlights moment went wide into the path of Schumacher (Sebastian, you utter utter total swine) who had made a brilliant start on the outside. They touched and Grosjean’s car started spinning around wildly. He then managed to punt Kobayashi into the path of Button. Way to go, Seb. In an entirely unrelated event (I think), Maldonaldo crashed out after colliding with an HRT. So it was all a bit frantic to say the least.

Lewis was on his radio in a nanosecond asking “what the hell happened at the start?” Is this not a question for Lewis who was the person in the car at the start? Kevin the Teenager is back in the building. What does Nicole know about his state of mind hey? Lewis is happy my foot. Does she ever watch the races? He is normally having a nervous breakdown by lap 3. Meanwhile there was general consternation about the state of Schuey’s car and how badly it had been damaged by the coming together with Crashjean (yes, the mean nickname has been reinstated). Brundle thought Schuey’s suspension might have been damaged – oh FFS. All Mercedes were saying to Schuey was to look after the gear-box. Great. That was two things for me to now worry about. The 4 year old already thought it was an outrage that Schuey started 6th (ie. after the grid-place penalty) so was getting super agitated as to why Schuey wasn't doing better.

First Clipboard Moment of the race – stewards were investigating cars shortcutting the first corner on lap 1. How idiotic – what were they supposed to do when confronted head on with the wildly spinning Lotus of Crashjean. Plough straight into it or sensibly try and pick another path around it. Anyway eventually they decided no further action would be taken. Maybe they feel they have to justify their salary sometimes by pretending to look into various incidents while kicking back and slugging on a bottle of beer, or champagne seeing as we were in Monaco and all that.

Meanwhile Webber was setting fastest lap after fastest lap while Alonso was holding up a stream of cars. First appearance of the word ‘procession’ in my notes and depressingly it wasn’t the last. On lap 13, we were told that it was due to rain in 15 laps time. Showing that A-level maths wasn’t a complete waste of time (but largely, it was), that meant the race might actually get vaguely exciting around lap 28. Until then the drivers would be working very hard to preserve their tyres and stay out until they would need to pit for wet tyres. Could we take much more excitement?!

Loews Hairpin - it really is very tricky
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Button was told they were switching to Plan B. Isn’t this what they always do and it never ever works? There was a hilarious moment when Narain Karthikeyan got the wrong racing line going round the Loews hairpin (or whatever its called these days) with no other cars remotely close by and basically managed to have an incident all by himself. It was eerily reminiscent of when I drive around Monaco when playing the Wii – the 4 year old, of course, has somehow mastered the art of staying superglued to the racing line (a point he makes to me repeatedly as my virtual car hurtles headlong into a virtual barrier). So I have great sympathy with Narain. That is a very difficult corner.

There was a big old tussle between Kimi and Schuey for the next few laps. Schuey was all over the back of the Lotus but simply could not find a way past – such is the joy of the near-impossible-to-overtake track that is Monaco. By lap 26 (yes we’re up to that point already), we were told there was possible rain in FOUR minutes and everyone’s tyres were starting to go off. Hall-e-lu-jah! As riveting as it was watching a huge traffic jam trundle around behind Kimi Raikkonen, it would be nice to actually see some action out there on track or even in the pitstop. Not fussy in the slightest!

Suddenly we had our first pitstop of any significance – in came Nico Rosberg for some soft tyres and he slotted back in nicely in 6th place ahead of the Kimi Traffic Jam. Also dicing with each other were Alonso and Hamilton, until Hamilton (along with Webber) came in to the pits. Alonso stayed out for one extra lap and had not one but two purple sectors (I thought the commentators were actually going to implode with excitement) which meant after his pitstop he was able to leapfrog Lewis. Did the McLaren mechanics not know that Scary Ron was in Monaco with his industrial strength hairdryer borrowed from Sir Alex Ferguson?! Oh dear.

From nowhere, it appeared that Sebastian Vettel was leading the race. I (pointlessly) asked the husband how on earth this had come to pass and he said it was because he had yet to stop. But various other drivers behind him had yet to stop (Schuey, Button etc) although admittedly he had the distinct advantage of not encountering Grosjean’s car doing pirouettes at close quarters at the start. Lap 35 saw Schuey finally come in for a pitstop but as he was now in 9th place, all the euphoria from qualifying (and indeed the will to live) had longed since drained away.

Next frisson of excitement was discovering that Perez had been given a drive through penalty for doing some naughty blocking tactics on Kimi just before going into the pits. Has the man got a death-wish or something. You mess with Kimi at your peril. Sergio had better watch out in Canada.

Bit like the Monaco Grand Prix

So at the half-way stage, the top order was 1. Vettel (how? how? how?), 2. Webber, 3. Nico, 4. Alonso, 5. Lewis and 6. Massa. It seems hardly worth noting that Button came into the pits and even though his race was effectively jiggered, the McLaren loons still managed to get him stuck behind Kovalainen in 15th place. Maybe Scary Ron had just thought blow this popstand and was sipping dry martinis on a luxury yacht. And who could blame him. He was probably bored senseless like the rest of us.

Time for an update from the Weather Monitor of Doom (or ‘Hope’ depending on whether you wanted some rain to spice up the race or fancied a quick 50 minute kip on the sofa). Heavy rain was now thirty minutes away. Lewis was now complaining that stuff from a pitboard was being dropped on his head. Okay, that’s a new one. You worry for his state of mind sometimes. FINALLY, Vettel came in for his supersofts and emerged from the pits just ahead of Hamilton and Massa. I hope Seb knew to get a move on – he didn’t want to get too near to Lewis. He is never off his radio for a single second. How can that be safe?! We were now told that no rain was expected before the end of the race. The will-it-won't-it rain updates were now getting beyond tedious.

Not that my attention was wandering (much) but I have noted down at this point that the 4 year old was re-enacting a race outside on the patio involving Hamilton and Schuey throwing sticks at each other. Truly bizarre but to be honest a darn sight more entertaining than the Monaco GP. The commentators meanwhile were telling us a pack of lies and saying it was going to be a barnstorming finish. The best thing you could say was that it was still very close up front – just a few seconds separated the top six. But unless the heavens opened and a flashflood hit Monaco in the next 20 minutes, squat diddly was going to change.

Lap 60 and Schuey reported a problem with the car (a fuel pressure issue apparently) and a stream of cars started passing him. Another retirement for Schuey. NOT GOOD ENOUGH, Mercedes. Do you hear me? The 4 year old drew a sad face on my pad. Think of the children.

The Weather Monitor of Doom (rely on this at your peril)

It was time for Lewis to start panicking about something else. Apparently there was a funny yellow light on the right hand side of the dashboard. Man, he really needs to chillax. I’m kind of thinking being an F1 driver wasn’t the best of career choices for someone who is a bit mentally fragile. Up popped a few umbrellas and we all got temporarily excited it was going to rain. None more so than Vergne who rushed in to get a set of inters. He dropped 4 places then promptly was the slowest man on the track. As they say on Top Gear, that didn’t go well.

Meanwhile it was all still very close at the front but it was Monaco, they could be out there for a month of Sundays (please god no) and nothing would EVER change. Button, who I had entirely forgotten about, crashed into Kovalainen and that was it, race over. And a pretty lousy one at that. The flag people had all suddenly woken up as there appeared to be more flags being waved everywhere than at a UN convention.

Basically nothing more happened until the end of the race. Or possibly I did fall asleep or got sidetracked watching the 4 year old hitting a small replica F1 car with a stick. Who knows?

So here are the results from the Monaco Grand Prix 2012:

1.     Webber – it will amuse you (as it did the husband) to learn that at the start of the race I said "whoever will win this race, it won’t be Mark Webber".
2.     Nico – hmmm you make sure his car is reliable don’t you, Mercedes?
3.     Alonso – he just keeps getting brilliant results and I’m probably more impressed by him this season than any other season. Currently TOP of the drivers championship.
4.     Vettel – qualified 10th and finished 4th so proves it can be done at Monaco but still no idea how.
5.     Hamilton – another missed opportunity…a big session with the shrink will need to be scheduled before the next race.
6.     Massa – for many people, 6th would be disappointing but in Felipe’s world it is pretty stunning.

So we got our SIXTH different winner in six races. How exciting (whatever Jenson Button might think). It doesn’t take Einstein to work out that the key to winning this year’s title will probably be consistency. Step forward, Fernando Alonso. Still I leave Monaco quite disappointed and gutted for what could have been. A race that promised so much from the thrilling qualifying session can basically be summarised in 6 words: no rain, traffic jam and dull.

But next up it is Montreal which is normally total and utter carnage. Last year’s utterly bonkers race was off the scale in terms of incidents, crashes and drama so I really, really cannot wait for this one. 

Saturday, 26 May 2012

Monaco GP - Qualifying


Wish you were here?
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)


The wait is finally over. We have made it all the way from Down Under (a race that seems like an age ago already), survived the biblical floods of Malaysia, trundled off to the UBS Chinese Grand Prix for a surprisingly good race, dodged a few bullets in Bahrain and dutifully ticked off the Race Before Monaco (Barcelona). F1 has landed in Monaco and it is time to PARTY!

Ah Monaco, how we love thee. With its gleaming sun-kissed harbour full of launches owned by Russian oligarchs, its marvellously dysfunctional but oh so glamorous royal family (note to Prince Harry – Charlotte Casiraghi would make a stunning bride and in one fell swoop immediately obliterate the Daily Mail obsession with ‘Her Royal Hotness’, Pippa M), and all those ugly beautiful luxury tower blocks perched perilously on the surrounding hills alongside the evocative Belle Époque architecture. Monaco is like Hong Kong on the French Riviera. What is there not to love? I have been there several times and it is absolutely my Favourite Place On Earth. The husband even proposed to me there – he’s a crafty piece of work. Wining and dining me in Monaco before a moonlit walk by the harbour. I think I must have thought this was a taste of things to come…fast forward 7 years and we’re watching The Voice on a Saturday night in deepest surburbia with the unbridled joy of Match of the Day still to come. I have a big birthday (wail…..!) in a very small handful of years time and that big birthday is in May, when the Monaco GP always takes place. I have to telegraph things as the husband well knows.

Anyhoo we have established that I love Monaco. But everyone freaking loves Monaco. The roll-call of celebs, politicians, film stars and sports personages will be immense and as much as I will mercilessly hurl abuse (not in the presence of my small children of course) at the TV upon sight of any of them (who aren’t self-professed petrolheads), I can’t really blame them for squeezing the Monaco GP into their schedule. Heck, if you’re invited to the Monaco GP, then you go. It’s a total no brainer. But I absolutely draw the line at Geri Halliwell who always seems to be there. But then who doesn’t.

The hotpotch collection of celebs floating around at the Cannes Film Festival normally give a few pointers for what A to Z listers will pop up in the pitlane at Monaco. I am fearing an appearance from Kanye West and his new ladyfriend, Kim Kardashian. Actually she has the potential to overtake Geri in the annoyance stakes. At least I know (faintly) why Geri is famous, mainly for singing (being kind) a bit and wearing very short Union Jack dresses a very long time ago. I don’t know what Kim Kardashian does and nor do I care. Old fart alert but honestly I really don’t care. Still the spectacle of Martin Brundle interviewing braindead Kim would be something to behold! <Suddenly remembers that Kelly Brook has been at Cannes – weeps morosely into computer>

All together now "Monday, Tuesday, Happy Days!"
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

I also believe that Ron Howard (who has just finished shooting his movie about Niki Lauda and James Hunt) may be taking in the Monaco Grand Prix. Now could anyone be more deserving of a gold-plated Monaco VIP pass than Ron?! Martin has to get a few words with him. Lets hope anyway that Ron doesn’t get accosted by Eddie Jordan who will undoubtedly bring up Happy Days.

So huge apologies in advance for the stream-of-consciousness and unedited nature of today’s blog. Am I allowed to chuck in some caveats or excuses at the very outset just in case I fail to live up my usual blog standards (ie. mediocre or rambling or plain daft or all three). Cheers!

1.     I like the rest of the UK have been waiting for some semblance of summer or indeed sun (last spotted in March) and so naturally the most and indeed only scorching weekend of the year to date coincides with the Monaco GP.

2.    It is absolutely, stone-bonkingly predictable that on the day of my most eagerly awaited qualifying session of the whole F1 season, I had a cram-packed schedule of lunatic proportions. Before anyone thinks that my weekends are a never-ending stream of fun and excitement, rest assured most (if not all) of the fun is for the benefit of the 4 year old and I am merely the unpaid taxi-driver, PA, general dogsbody who is responsible for the family itinerary running like clockwork or more realistically not disintegrating into total chaos. Given the husband has cited lack of punctuality as one of my failings (in our pre-marriage course from memory!), it’s a miracle we ever make it anywhere to be honest. 

3.     I have been awake since before 5am. As the 4 year old so succinctly put it in the car ‘Mummy, during the week you wake me up and at the weekend I wake you up’. It’s a cruel world.

This all means that at the time of starting this blog (6pm), I have only caught NINE minutes of qualifying but they were THE BEST nine minutes of qualifying all season (spoiler alert possibly if you know me well or have read previous posts and bravely/foolishly come back for more!). I am currently watching the start of qualifying while typing – this is the kind of upside down reverse time vortex that I seem to live in these days. I blame Sky Plus and possibly Doctor Who for messing with time.

After perusing several hundred tweets from various members of the F1 fraternity over the last few days, this had felt like the longest build up to a qualifying session ever. It didn't get remotely annoying seeing countless pictures of sun-drenched Monaco at all hours of the day and night for days on end. Occasionally there was the odd reference to the forthcoming race but by and large, there was a lot of 'look at me standing by the harbour/on this big boat/in front of the casino' or 'here are some models in a hot tub' by people who should have known better. I am saying nothing but a Sky presenter who is called Simon who I don’t rate springs to mind.

So the Beeb coverage is now underway on Sky Plus and after a quick recap of previous dramatic openings to the Beeb’s coverage of Monaco in recent years (I never did get the point of the one with all three of them in the lift – another achingly cool movie reference I failed to get?!), they decided this year to save on the budget just sit on a boat and talk about all the different race winners so far this season and how we might get a SIXTH different race winner in Monaco for the first time ever in the history of time. Yet to win is Hamilton, Webber, Schumacher and Kimi to name but a few great drivers and Webber. The earth might stop turning on its axis if we get a sixth different winner – or so the Beeb would have us believe. I’m a bit scared to be honest.

Quick bit of footage of DC winning the Monaco back in 2002 (I want to know if paying homage to DC’s great racing moments is in his contract – if so, nice bit of negotiation there). Coulthard then wondered out loud where those ten years went. You and me both, David. Is it really ten whole years since 2002? <Opens first beer of the evening and sobs into it>

Inspired by my new obsession of reading fashion blogs (hard to imagine our respective readers overlap at all but must do a quick plug for the very entertaining Does My Bum Look 40), I’m trying to pay more attention to matters of style and so nearly passed out when I caught sight of the sheer monstrosity that was David Coulthard’s ensemble. He was sporting a shirt of the most vilest neon bogey colour you have ever seen. Good god man, its Monaco, make an effort! If there was ever a place to wear your wardrobe stable of white jeans + pink shirt it surely is here. Even the husband who NEVER plays any attention to matters of style commented on the hideousness of the shirt. Eddie Jordan was reassuringly keeping faith with one of his customary Pan’s People flower power shirt although the mind boggles as to what he has in store for race day.

Quick mention that Mercedes are apparently keeping tabs on Paul Di Resta. Just as I thought to myself ‘why?’, the husband chimed up with ‘that’s because they think he’s Italian’. I pointed out that Mercedes were a German team and the husband mumbled something about Ferrari and the heat. 

So has the Beeb not splashed out on a few square foot of terrace with a bit of trendy decking and wicker chairs like previous years? Poor old Jake Humphrey, DC (and less so Eddie Jordan who kept veering off at random directions) seemed to be just wandering around the streets of Monaco. But suddenly excitement of excitements – they stopped and marvelled at the Rascasse corner. We told the 4 year old this was where Mummy and Daddy got engaged and he said ‘why?’.

The Great Michael Schumacher - he quite likes driving at Monaco
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Now I don’t think the Beeb have so much an axe to grind against Michael Schumacher as a full-blown fatwa kind of vendetta. They had found some never-seen-before footage of Michael Schumacher ‘using his car as a weapon’ against our plucky Brit, Lewis Hamilton, in Barcelona. Two points. Firstly, dudes, this is Monaco, there must be a trillion magical moments in the Monaco archives that F1 aficionados would love to see way much more. Secondly, Lewis is no saint either, nor was Senna, nor was Prost etc. Just deal with the fact that Michael is A Racer. Heck even Damon Hill over on Sky isn’t that biased against Schumacher even though Hill was deprived of an almost certain title when Schuey crashed into him at Adelaide in 1994. Anyway Eddie was in full rant mode saying Schuey needed to learn some basic common manners – oh puh-lease Eddie, you would have walked over broken glass to get Schuey behind the wheel of a Jordan again after his debut race. Oh that’s right you applied and failed to get an injunction to try and prevent Schuey moving to Benetton. STFU.

Next up for a mauling was none other than last time out’s race hero, Pastor Maldonaldo. Apparently he also ‘used his car as a weapon’ (new Beeb buzz-phrase alert) when colliding into Perez in FP3 and we were told he had previous (cue footage of some incident with Saint Lewis Hamilton at Spa in 2011). Maybe these dastardly acts mean he is the next Schumacher. So Pastor has a bit of a dark side. I like a drivers with a dark side. Anyway he has a ten place grid penalty as a result presumably after Eddie marched up to the stewards with his clipboard of grievances.

Niki Lauda, coming to a screen near you soon
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Then a MASSIVE treat – a long feature on the Ron Howard Lauda/Hunt film. Lots of snippets from the film and even better from real-life F1 racing back in the 70s. The husband even stopped following the cricket on his phone for a few seconds and was waxing lyrical about the good old days. This movie looks AWESOME. I am booking a sitter for the very first night that it is released. Down in the land of surburbia as opposed to attending the Premiere. Obviously.

Apparently Kimi Raikkonen is wearing a James Hunt helmet (it actually says James Hunt on it!) for the Monaco Grand Prix. If there was any doubt as to Kimi’s super-coolness it is confirmed for all eternity. I am SO glad that Kimi came back to F1. It needs drivers like him who not only are pure racers and totally uncompromising but are unpredictable and maverick and basically would have fitted in perfectly into the 1970s.

Next up an interview with Dickie Stanford. Apparently static electricity caused the fire. Dickie, that is a great explanation – who can control the forces of static electricity hey! But seriously a nice touch by the Beeb to follow up on the Williams fire at Barcelona and a big hand to those teams who lent Williams Lots of Important Equipment for the race. Ooops lets hope Sauber didn't lend any equipment to Williams otherwise they will be mighty pee'd off! 

Ah I spoke too soon about the lack of terrace. Jake and Eddie were now located by the Red Bull Pool. Ah yes, I remember the Red Bull pool from last year when DC and Eddie were thrown into it. Happier times.

Time for Q1. The main drama was Perez just slamming the car into the armco at the Swimming Pool Complex. Two crashes in two years for Perez at Monaco. Safe to say its not really His Circuit. Cue red flags. Out from Q1 – the usual suspects, the two HRT’s, the two Marussia’s and the two Caterham’s, and poor old Perez.

Moving onto Q2. First point to note was that Nico Rosberg was looking very, very fast and Button was looking pretty sluggish. And Vettel isn’t even at the races (pardon the pun). Then to everyone’s total amazement (not least Luca Montezemolo I suspect), Massa topped the timesheets in Q2. Absolutely astonishing. Kimi and Button were battling it out to get into the top ten and boy, its really not Jenson Button’s year. He finished up in 13th place. Maybe its advancing years, maybe his desire and ambition is diminishing but I feel we may be starting to the see the decline of Jenson Button. Cue stunning Monaco victory after massive first lap pile up. Natch.

Finally time for Q3 and for me a delightful re-watch of the 9 whole minutes of qualifying that I did see live! Five minutes to go and the top grid order read 1. Rosberg, 2. Grosjean, 3. Webber, 4. Hamilton and 5. Schumacher. When watching this live, the 4 year old spotted his surname on the billboards around the track (V-Power). He is easily impressed!

Back to the action and my beady eye was trained on Alonso with a minute to go, my hot tip for pole, but he finished 5th. What do I know hey? The usual flood of drivers were on flying laps and moments after DC said that Webber was too slow and wasn’t going to improve, he plonked the Red Bull on provisional pole. Way to tear up the Beeb script, Mark! Hamilton, Kimi and Grosjean were all on track. Kimi didn’t improve on his time. Massa ended up 6th and suddenly here was Schumacher who put the Mercedes ON POLE at the absolute death. His first ever pole was in Monaco. I had forgotten that. Nice.

DC reminded us at the speed of light that Michael 'Voldemort' Schumacher had a 5 place grid penalty after the ‘dishonour’ of the collision with Senna in Barcelona. Oh just shut up David.

The Lucky Cap!

There was a glorious moment when Ross Brawn came on the radio to Schuey and said ‘you little star’. The 4 year old was demented with joy and dancing around in his new Michael Schumacher cap and I didn’t have the heart to remind him (he wisely doesn’t listen to DC’s warblings) that Schuey will drop 5 places. Lets just all enjoy this Truly Golden Moment.

All hail Michael Schumacher, 43 years young, rolling back the years. This might possibly be his last ever pole position but there is no finer or more fitting place to do it than Monaco, the track which is the ultimate test of driver skill.

And so the last word is from Michael: “I told you guys already that my situation is going to be that I will be on pole, start the race in sixth and go on to win it. And that’s what I’m going to aim for. That’s all I have in my mind and the past doesn’t matter at all.”

Legend. End of.

So, so excited about tomorrow. Who knows, I might have to locate a bottle of Krug after all! 

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

Spanish GP - The Race

Pastor Maldonaldo - hero of Barcelona
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The Weekend of Sport has ended and I’m still a bit punch-drunk with it all. I went into Sunday’s race with severe sleep deprivation. Thanks to the 4 year old catapaulting himself into action at 6am (after stumbling home in the early hours like the pre-children days of old), I had a paltry 4 hours shut-eye. Apparently Margaret Thatcher used to get by on just 4 hours sleep a night and there I guess is a lesson for us all. I must admit while mainlining coffee on Sunday morning (the post-op nurse actually recommended caffeine intake unless I was hallucinating in the Hospital that Time Forgot) and a steady stream of painkillers, I quietly hoped for one of those processional, soporific Spanish races where you can catch a few zzzzs here and there and you miss squat diddly. Spoiler Alert: this race was nothing of the sort. Bugger.

We started off (careful choice of wordage) on the Beeb, principally because the TV was still stuck on that channel and I love seeing the husband 4 year old doing air guitar to The Chain. Quite partial to a bit of Fleetwood Mac which I know makes me sound about 900 years old. Can’t be doing with that ‘Just Drive’ intro on Sky – its all a bit…erm…Journey South really.

First off, Jake Humphrey, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan decided to recreate the 100 metres final from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics (you know the one that we won). Its hard sometimes to imagine what goes on in a Beeb F1 show production meeting and why anyone thought this would be a good idea. Maybe the name of the game was just to make EJ look dafter than normal but I felt sorry for a man of his years exerting himself in that heat – he could have done himself an injury! They chatted about where they all were back in 1992. Eddie was reminded of the inglorious Jordan-Yamaha era. OMG, I had forgotten about those cars – they were really, really bad. DC was racing somewhere or other and I’m not sure Jake said but I fear he might still have been at school. I myself was at a Greek summer school (don’t ask) with a good sprinkling of (I just know the husband will mentally insert ‘fellow’ here) oddballs. Rock and roll baby.


Farina in a Alfa Romeo, Silverstone 1950 

Eddie randomly spouted on for a bit about golf and the great Seve Ballesteros who apparently was the epitome of Spain’s brilliant sporting talent. A more ‘relevant’ (to use one of Simon Cowell’s buzzwords) reference might have been Rafael Nadal (youngest player in the Open Era to win the Grand Slam) but there you go. We then had an utterly magical quick snippet of footage from the first EVER F1 World Championship Grand Prix held on 13 May 1950. The podium was a 1-2-3 for Alfa Romeo. The 4th Alfa (driven by Fangio) retired due to engine problems (which will surprise no one who has ever had an Alfa Romeo). Nonetheless, I simply Heart Alfa Romeos. 

Careering back to some semblance of race build-up (from the Beeb and blog-wise!), we were eventually told that Hamilton had been demoted from P1 to P24 on the grid. Duh…elephant in the room etc. Apparently, Ferrari were ‘disappointed’ in Massa’s qualifying performance. And in other news, the Pope is Catholic. I wonder if Pope Benedict XVI is interested in F1? Is it compulsory for a Pope to support Ferrari? Or does Pope Benedict secretly pray for Mercedes. If so, he needs to start praying a bit harder to the Big Man Upstairs.


Ron, your old team needs you!
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

DC interviewed our new man in pole position, Maldonaldo, and remarked that he hadn’t actually done the perfect lap. Er, David, he stuck his frigging car (and a Williams at that) on pole FFS. Then there was quite a painful interview with Martin Whitmarsh who provided us with a convoluted explanation as to why there wasn’t enough fuel in Hamilton’s car. The poor man seemed a bit shell-shocked to be honest and said that Lewis was shocked and disappointed. Let’s hope they had flown the therapist out to Barcelona. Time for an SOS to the Dark Knight, Ron Dennis. He wouldn’t put up with this incompetence – there literally would be bodies on the ground. There was a long feature on pitstops (the entirely of which I fast-forwarded) and a monosyllabic interview with Kimi Raikkonen and Lee McKenzie. No fault on the part of the lovely Lee but Kimi is David Blaine-esque when it come to interviews. There is simply no point. And I actually like Kimi.

So time for the David Coulthard Gridwalk (no trademark pending). Normally this is the point at which the Beeb coverage starts to unravel. One of the problems seems to be that DC doesn’t actually walk up and down the grid but stays on the grassy bits at the side so the poor camera-man is literally stumbling over leads and tyres to try and keep up. It was desperate stuff and DC resorted to talking to the one person on the planet who is always gagging to be interviewed, Christian Horner. Time to defect across onto Sky and we rejoined proceedings at #Martin’sGridwalk (as emblazoned on the screen). Never mind trademarks, hash-tag and Twitter is where its all at. Clever old Sky.

Martin’s first interviewee was Narain Karthikeyan. How fabulous. I have had a soft spot for Narain ever since the Malaysian Grand Prix when everyone kept crashing into him. He said he’d had a lot of technical problems on Friday (the husband quipped “its called the HRT” – hmmm, not sure a career in stand-up awaits) and they were targeting Marussia in this race. Ah it’s a different world down the back of the grid. Martin had lots of quick chats with Massa, Jackie Stewart, Norbert Haug and several failed attempts to interview a 'Marty’s Random Person' until Brundle spotted Bernie (the least random person ever at an F1 race) who said he would like to see Williams win. Good God – I don’t think he even said that in the Damon Hill era.

Time For the Start and Go Go Go...! A fantastic start from Alonso who raced wheel to wheel with Maldonaldo along the monster straight to the first corner. And Maldonaldo under severe pressure blinked (well it was never going to be Fernando ‘balls of steel’ Alonso). So Alonso took the lead at the first corner. Both Mercedes were out of the blocks very quickly whilst Webber seemed to stick his car into reverse. Meanwhile Lewis was driving like a demon making up a dizzying 8 places by the 5th lap. By the 6th lap, Alonso reported that his left front and rear tyres were starting to degrade so it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out the first lot of pit-stops were nigh. Holy cow. At this rate, people will be having to pit on the formation lap in Monaco. Perez was zooming around the track faster than everyone else on his new hard tyres (after sustaining a puncture when he banged into Grosjean on lap one) so no prizes for guessing what everyone would do in the pits. Quick camera flick onto Webber dicing dangerously with Narain Karthikeyan. Poor old Narain – he always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t worry mate, its only Monaco next.


Angry Schuey (vintage model)

Time for the first McLaren pitstop (for Jenson Button). Duh duh duh. Hearts in mouths time and praise be, there were no cock-ups. Unfortunately only another 5ish McLaren pitstops to go. All the front-runners came in and interestingly Mercedes and Lotus opted for soft tyres (seemingly in the face of all reason). Meanwhile Lewis was just charging through the pack and was up to 8th place – he may be a fragile character at times but boy can he drive. Lap 12 and Grosjean/Senna had a little scrape. Then all of a sudden, we saw Michael Schumacher sitting IN THE GRAVEL. Surely this can’t be happening again. The 4 year old who was busy drawing a picture of Michael Schumacher (I know, we don’t live in a normal house) suddenly went into meltdown and started shrieking repeatedly (which didn’t get annoying at all!) “has Schumacher crashed?”. The replay showed that Michael had indeed crashed into the back of Bruno Senna. No easy way to say this but it was totally Schuey’s fault – he got caught out by Bruno entering the braking zone, admittedly a bit early. Schumacher did look very angry and called Bruno an ‘idiot’ on his team radio. I hope Bruno is in a safe place as Angry Schuey has a habit of storming into other garages looking for a punch-up (see Coulthard, Spa 1998).

According to my drug-addled notes, on lap 14, Lewis did something called a lapstop (???) and ‘something went wrong’. Well it was merely a matter of time. Hamilton seemed to hit something that was in the way as he drove off causing his car to bounce up awkwardly. What is going on at McLaren – have they got someone working on the inside trying to scupper Hamilton’s title chances (maybe I’ve watched too much 24). Team radio message to Jenson Button (hey I’d almost forgotten about him) to say they were ‘moving to Plan B’ and ‘running to target’. Must be quite a low target then.

Meanwhile, Webber was still going backwards and the world and its dog was overtaking him. Even Massa managed to get past him. Oh the shame. Time for another Red Bull pitstop for Mark – if in doubt, blame the pesky tyres hey Mark. Anyway Far More Importantly, Pastor Maldonaldo pitted and came out in 3rd place behind Kimi. As Brundle ever-perceptively commented, Pastor needed to do the greatest out-lap ever and you know what, he did A Truly Epic Lap. All the same while as Alonso was stuck helplessly behind Pic’s Marussia (another prime candidate for the Mobile Chicane Wall of Shame). We had some classic Fernando latin fist-shaking as he eventually got past Pic. Time for Alonso’s pitstop and those crucial fragments of seconds gained by Pastor and lost by Alonso on the previous lap meant that Alonso rejoined the race BEHIND Maldonaldo. Turning Point Alert. In my opinion, Ferrari pitted Fernando too late #Ferrarifail.

The stewards’ little office must have been a veritable hive of clipboard activity. First off, both Vettel and Massa were given drive through penalties for failing to slow down under yellow flags (enormously helpful for Hamilton who was battling Massa by then for 5th place) and the Schumacher/Senna incident was being investigated. At the half-way point, the order was 1. Maldonaldo, 2. Alonso, 3. Kimi, 4. Grosjean, 5. Hamilton and 6. Rosberg. I was just wondering what on earth had become of Jenson Button when we saw him being overtaken by Kamui Kobayashi for P7. Cue a new Brundle-ism, Jenson was apparently ‘KK-ed’. He wouldn't be the first.

By way of context, the Super Tense Final Day of the Football Season was now underway and although the husband was still watching the race (at his request, go figure), his nerves were increasingly shot to pieces as he checked the latest scores every 5 seconds. Back to F1 normality and what could be more normal than a drive-through for Pic who ended up retiring at some later point anyway. Well done Charles, you came to Spain, messed up Alonso’s race then left again. Probably best to get yourself on a flight out of the country sharpish.


Maldonaldo in the race-winning FW34 (who'da thunk it!)
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Maldonaldo was driving imperiously from the front. Williams brought him for his final pitstop and it was not the slickest of pitstops although quite low down on the McLaren Pitstop Disastometer. Alonso then came in for a much cleaner pitstop and both emerged behind Kimi. While Pastor was stuck behind Kimi, Alonso was just eating into the gap. Eventually both got past the Lotus but Alonso was still taking chunks out of Pastor’s lead every single lap. This was going to be EXTREMELY close and a right old humdinger to the chequered flag. Ten mahoosive laps to go and there was only a 0.4 second gap. I felt Maldonaldo would have to do a Gilles to pull this one off especially given that this was Alonso’s home Grand Prix.

To add a bit more into the mix, Lotus were telling Kimi that they were actually best placed to win this race! But he was miles behind – what do they know that I don’t?! (ok, actually loads). The thing with Kimi is that anything is possible. Both Maldonaldo and Alonso were having to ease off on their tyres (to avoid another race-destroying pitstop) – it was glorious cat and mouse stuff. Vettel (remember him?) was having a blinding final stint, swallowing up cars in his path left, right and centre. First Button and then Lewis and then later on Rosberg. On lap 60, Nico was KK-ed as Kobayashi put a stunning move on him to move into an incredible 5th place. He is a fabulously gutsy driver – Ferrari could do a lot worse than look at him alongside Alonso.

Kimi was gobbling up more and more time from Alonso with one blistering lap after another but on lap 66, Maldonaldo took the chequered flag to seal a truly magnificent victory. The first Williams win since Montoya in 2004 (how can this be 8 years ago already?!) and on the weekend where the F1 paddock joined together to celebrate Sir Frank Williams’ 70th birthday (didn’t these birthday celebrations all start back in China – memories of EJ’s gushing eulogy are imprinted forever on my mind – it’s the birthday that never ends).

So here are the results from the Spanish Grand Prix 2012:

1.     Maldonaldo – And I really never thought I’d be writing that next to P1. A magnificent drive.
2.     Alonso – Broken record I know, but he is doing a truly phenomenal job in that pig of a Ferrari. What a Class Act.
3.     Kimi – Another podium. I am loving Kimi's comeback.
4.   Grosjean – And the second Lotus to be high up in the points. Isn’t this what Mercedes should be doing?
5.     Kobayashi – Such an impressive drive.
6.     Vettel 

And finally a most honourable mention for Lewis Hamilton who finished an incredible 8th (from 24th on the grid) having had to overcome the crushing blow of being stripped of his pole position. A very cool and mature (and un-Lewis) drive. He drove brilliantly to conserve his tyres all through the race. Blimey, have I just written that sentence? It was really Lewis in that McLaren wasn’t it?!


Sir Frank Williams - Living Legend

There were great scenes of celebration in the Williams garage and a most marvellous moment when the Sky Team were asking Senna about Schumacher crashing into him and Damon Hill said (in the dryest way imaginable) “we now have something in common”. Actually thought that Damon and Johnny Herbert were a great pairing and it almost brought a tear to the eye to see Damon being back in the Williams garage again. For the record, I have wiped any memory of the utterly dismal Simon Lazenby from my mind. How can anyone look so bored at a F1 race as he does? I’m almost longing for the (not very halycon) days of Jim Rosenthal. Believe it or not, dear old Jim counted as one of our celebrity spots at the Monaco GP once (back in the pre-sprogs day of course). Another top moment was seeing Dickie Stanford (Williams Race & Test Team Manager) go up onto the podium. Random Fact: Dickie just turned up on the doorstep of the Williams factory on the early 80s and asked for a job. Another Did You Know is that he used to be Nigel Mansell’s mechanic. This is why everyone loves The Williams Family.

In the midst of the Super Tense Football Watching (after the race), I was flicking through Twitter and suddenly exclaimed very loudly. The husband asked if Sunderland had scored (he was in a very dark place by now) and to his utter shock (and mine) I discovered there had been a terrible fire in the Williams garage. It seems like there was a fuel explosion just as Sir Frank and the whole team were celebrating their win. Although several people were injured, it could have been so, so much worse and it was wonderful and heart-warming to see how all the other teams rushed in (literally, into a burning garage) to help. Perhaps the stand-out image of the race is Pastor Maldonaldo carrying his young cousin to safety as the smoke billowed out of the garage behind them. Does the drama of this F1 season ever end?

And so to Monaco (SCREAM!!!). Five races so far and 5 different winners in 5 different teams (McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull and Williams). What do the racing gods have in store there for us? The mind boggles. Lotus (who are going great guns) haven’t even won a race yet? Could it be 6 different drivers in 6 different cars? I am beside myself with excitement about the Monaco GP. The 4 year old has acquired a new hat (yes, a hat) for the occasion. All will be revealed. See you back here on 26th May with a glass (or three) of Krug.

Saturday, 12 May 2012

Spanish GP - Qualifying



Casa Batllo
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)


Barcelona…dum di dum di dum di dum…Barcelona!! Was that not the best Olympics song ever?! Mind you I am slightly struggling to think of any other Olympics song. What musical paean will be unveiled for London 2012? Well it seems like there is a whole myriad of songs being recorded for the Olympics. Apparently McFly have penned the official song for the mascots. WTF…even the mascots have a song?! Tinchy Stryder and Dionne Bromfield are doing the ‘Torch Relay’ song and Elbow have written the BBC’s official Olympic theme (nice upbeat choice there from the Beeb). Underworld have been appointed as the musical directors for the opening ceremony with Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Shallow Grave etc) as artistic director. An interesting collaboration if truth be told – all I can visualise are lots of drug addicts and zombies leaping around whilst shouting lager, lager, lager (insert typical Saturday night out in [city of choice] here). And throw Boris Johnson (even literally, perhaps out of a cannonball a la Russell Grant on Strictly) into proceedings and blockbuster ratings would guaranteed.

Apologies, a huge digression (and possible descent into madness) already… I’ve had a small operation this week and been living on a cocktail of painkillers since Wednesday. When the 4 year old says, “Mummy please wear a hat to school” (presumably to avoid scaring small children) you know its not your finest hour.

Anyhow, lets put the flags out, crack open the bolly as the F1 roadshow has arrived in Europe! First stop, Espana. It must really be the start of summer and as if by magic (given the biblical rain of the last few weeks), the sun is finally shining even in England. Stone the flaming crows.

As we settled down to watch the qualifying coverage slightly delayed (as ever we are slaves to the 4 year old’s far superior social life), a unilateral decision was made by myself to pick the Beeb’s coverage. I felt it would be beyond me to wade through the interminable and we-take-ourselves-very-seriously offering from Sky Towers. My fuzzy and slightly numb head was only really equipped to cope with the zany stream-of-consciousness witterings of Eddie Jordan…just.

We opened with a slightly curious montage, which reminded us that Spain used to have a nasty military dictator and people used to say “Europe stopped at the Pyrenees”. But happily those dark days have now gone. Seeing as Franco died in 1975 (the year of my birth so depressingly quite a long time ago), I’m not entirely sure why this seemed relevant and worthy of bringing up. Seems a bit harsh on poor old Spain to rake all that up when Bahrain is currently doing quite a nice line in dictatorships and everyone went into full ostrich ‘we’re just here for the racing’ mode a few weeks back.

Spain is really feeling the love for F1 these days (after many years of not giving an xxxx for the sport). Nothing like having your own double world champion to increase the fanbase hey. There are prawn (or whatever the Spanish for prawn is) sandwiches the world over. Bless Roy Keane for thinking a prawn sandwich was the pinnacle of haute cuisine (I’ll surely get a bonus point from the husband for name-checking Roy Keane).

Jake and DC chatted away about how Fernando Alonso is now on Twitter and how he’s been full of brilliant insights. I recently discovered Alonso on Twitter myself and he seems like a top guy – very funny and very passionate about racing. He has definitely moved onto the List of Drivers that I Didn’t Like But Now Really Like – I’m a sucker for someone driving a rubbish Ferrari really brilliantly (see M Schumacher, 1996). Jake seems to be on a mission to get Eddie Jordan onto Twitter. This absolutely must happen. I might start a petition!

Like raw eggs (apparently)

They all then chewed the cud for a bit about tyres and Schumacher’s recent criticism of them. Basically the Pirellis have been deliberately designed to degrade super-fast to prevent drivers going flat-out and thereby to make racing much closer. Schumacher isn’t the kind of guy who wants to cruise around as if behind a safety car. He simply wants to race flat-out and drive to the optimum (a classic Schuey word) of his ability and the car’s ability. All seems fairly reasonable to me. But according to EJ, Schuey is totally “out of order” for taking this stance. It is the same for everyone blah blah and it just means we have a different kind of racing. What is more important than anything else, so EJ told us (in almost hysterical tones) was “The Show” and so Schumacher was utterly villainous (sub-text – not for the first time) for wanting to deprive us of that.

Well here’s my ha’penneth. Tyres have always degraded the more a driver has pushed. But these Pirelli tyres have placed an artificial limit on how hard the drivers can push – the Pirelli’s performance levels are falling off a cliff before 10 laps have been completed which is ridiculous. The focus has moved away from pure driver skill to a bunch of geeks on the pitlane wall frantically figuring out how to win the race. Do you want to see a race run by someone driving on the ragged limit or by someone ‘cleverly’ conserving his way to the finish line. Basically, are you Senna or are you Prost? Sometimes you might get a dull race with a supremely dominant drive but it would at least be ‘real’. The irony is that the cars genuinely appear to be very closely matched this year and aren’t we as fans losing out by not being able to see the Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus, Mercedes, Williams etc racing FLAT-OUT against each other.

Right, I’m getting off my soap-box now and onto the all-important (or is it, see the Q3 debacle) business of qualifying…

Whizzing through Q1 – more or less all the usual suspects doing what they normally do in qualifying except for WILLIAMS who are looking frigging fast! The session ended with Maldonaldo in 5th place and Senna in…er…18th and out of Q2. Ok it was just Pastor’s Williams that looked fast. Bad day at the office for Bruno who in an attempt to force his way into Q2 totally over-drove and spun off into some gravel. The husband said that Patrick Head wouldn’t be happy. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Patrick Head retired from Williams last year. Its hard for him to keep up sometimes now he is 40 (he’ll kill me for that). So the top six in Q1 was 1. Lewis, 2. Grosjean, 3. Alonso, 4. Rosberg, 5. Maldonaldo and 6. Kobayashi.

Onto Q2. Quite early on, Lewis set a cracking time, so much so that he got out of the car and disappeared off into the back of the garage somewhere. Under 2 minutes to go and both Ferraris were in the drop zone. I made a prediction here that one Ferrari would make it into Q3 and it wouldn’t be Massa. And you know what, I was right. But I didn’t expect that Massa would actually finish in 17th place. Disgraceful. Somewhere in Maranello, a minion is clearing out Felipe’s locker and posting the contents back to Brazil. Really it would be better if Ferrari just had one driver than the unmitigated disaster that is Massa dragging the once proud (maybe still proud?) name of Ferrari through the mud. Literally. Just at the death, Schumacher hauled his car into 10th place and the 4 year old rejoiced wildly. Vettel also squeaked into the top ten and shock of shocks, Button and Webber fell into the drop-zone and failed to make the top ten shoot-out. Jenson, where is it all going wrong? Actually we know its something to do with understeer as he has complained about it 20 thousand times so far this weekend on the radio. The fastest driver in Q2 incidentally was Maldonaldo. In a Williams. Good Lord.

So finally Q3 was underway. First out was Vettel who looked quite fast, then lost some time and just scooted off back to the pits without setting a lap-time. It is actually quite difficult to blog about Q3 as there were NO CARS out on the track most of the time. Hooray (eventually) for Lewis who decided to turn rogue and have the audacity to set a lap-time which resulted in him being in 1st place out of a mighty total of 1 cars. Schuey had a little pootle out on the track but clearly thought to himself blow this popstand and also scuttled back to the pits.

Then incredibly, a SECOND car decided to do a flying lap. It was little Nico. Well done that man. It was England v Germany all over again…and...Lewis still stayed on provisional pole. So under two minutes to go and we had seen two flying laps. Pirelli, this is ALL your fault. Eventually most of the teams blinked and panicked and we had tons of cars all hurtling around at the last minute. Alonso went 1st, Kimi went 2nd, Perez went 3rd, Grosjean went 2nd, Maldonaldo went 1st (say what!!!!), Hamilton went 1st (again) and Vettel just couldn’t be bothered.

So the grid lines up tomorrow like this:
1. Hamilton, 2. Maldonaldo (a Williams is on the front row – the husband nearly fainted with joy), 3. Alonso (how on earth did he manage that?!), 4. Grosjean, 5. Kimi, 6. Perez, 7. Rosberg, 8. Vettel, 9. Schuey and 10. Kobayashi.

I’ll be keeping a careful eye on the cars in 8th to 10th at the start. That has First Lap Incident written all over it. Just time for a quick Christian Horner interview (does he actually spend any time in the Red Bull garage?) before the Beeb had to abruptly end its coverage to show Wigan Warriors v St Helens. Some rugby game or other. Whatever.

Lewis (not so smiley tonight)
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

NEWSFLASH OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!!!! Just peeked onto BBC Sport (to check the names of those frigging rugby teams) only to discover Lewis Hamilton has been STRIPPED of his pole and will start from the BACK of the grid. Apparently the stewards rejected the McLaren argument of 'force majeure' that a team member had put an "unsufficient quantity of fuel into the car". The husband is currently opining away on the concept of force majeure and apparently the stewards are quite right. Whoever said that lawyers are heartless. POOR Lewis. I feel your pain.

Ok time to wrap up and have a fashion crisis (as off out later…). See you tomorrow or in a day or two later when I have recovered sufficiently from Lewis-gate and the events of the race to do my mighty race blog. Adios amigos.