Unfinished Masterpiece (Credit: The husband) |
So here we
all are at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal in glorious technicolour sunshine.
Ok its probably just normal blue clouds and yellow sun but so unaccustomed are
my eyes and brain to any form of sunny weather (after weeks and weeks of vile,
hideous rain) that it took my eyes a few moments to adjust to seeing anywhere
bathed in sunshine. Although admittedly there was (gasp) some sunshine even in
Kent today but you get my drift, or perhaps not. Enough of my weather rant (you
can see I’ve been quite scarred by the inclement conditions recently!).
So what thrills and
excitement await us this weekend in Canada? Ponders a while…
Will we have our 7th
winner in 7th races? Where will this insanity end? Maybe we could go
a whole season with different winners in each race. This might mean that Narain
gets to win a Grand Prix. <Reaches for medication>
Will the Fake Charlie
Whiting actually get to press the magic buttons to fire up all the red lights
and then start the race. For the uninitiated (or those who have a life outside
F1!), the Fake Charlie Whiting is from the world of Twitter and his (very humorous
– it has to be said!) tweets have amused the Real Charlie Whiting so much that
he has extended an invitation to the Fake Charlie Whiting to the F1 paddock in
Montreal. How brilliantly cool is that! After stumbling across the Fake Charlie
Whiting on Twitter a few weeks ago, I have since discovered there is a whole
army of ‘fake’ F1 characters out there from @FakeMrsSchumi (its not me!!) to
@IamLewis4fake to @fakewhitmarsh. There is apparently even a fake safety car
Twitter account. What a mad world we live in.
Will Simon Lazenby make a
flippant and misjudged ‘joke’ about Gilles Villeneuve along the lines of ‘cars
are dangerous as Gilles would well know’ as poor Johnny Herbert alongside him looks
for the ground to swallow him up. For
the avoidance of doubt (and legal bods) no crass Gilles comment took place (I
hope!).
Finally, how many
thousands of times will we hear the phrase ‘Wall of Champions’ – the final
corner of the track so named because former F1 champions keep crashing into it.
It’s a simple name – does what it says on the tin. There is a distinct
possibility that non-former F1 champions will crash into it too given there are
two HRTs and Grosjean in the race but safe to say it won’t be renamed the Wall
of HRT anytime soon.
I was lucky to see any of
the qualifying build-up in the House of Power. Our two TVs (I thought we used
to have more but anyway) were stretched to breaking point with various other
sporting events. Fighting for survival was:
1.
Canadian GP Qualifying. Obviously.
2. Football – Netherlands v Denmark. The Netherlands are
apparently the husband’s chosen team for the Euros. Yes, he is English (born in
Kenya, grew up in South Africa but I think he is still faintly English) but
have you seen the state of the England team!?! God bless them.
3.
Cricket – England v West Indies. Some test or other up
north.
4. Rugby – South Africa v
England. Both of the husband’s teams playing a match in the city where the
husband grew up.
NB. There was also the
tailend of some tennis but as it was just the women’s French Open final it
doesn’t count.
Sky Towers being Sky
opened the show with a totally baffling and nonsensical segment featuring lots
of revolving cards and rows of ducks to apparently represent how ordered and
predictable F1 has always been until...2012…which guess what…was the year that
Sky started showing F1. What a boring, predictable sport it has always been hey.
Makes you wonder why we’ve all bothered to watch it for years and years. Collective
sigh at Sky’s self-serving reconstuction of F1 history.
Anyhoo, because we are in
Canada, Sky have decided to bring Jacques Villeneuve on board for the weekend
with seemingly no sign of Damon. Does this mean Damon has been usurped by
Villeneuve? How very Williams of the late 90s. I could never warm to Jacques
Villeneuve for some reason. Partly for nearly scuppering Damon’s title but also
he just seemed to lack any panache and charisma and he is just so opininated.
For example, saying Kimi was undeserving of his title in 2007 when Jacques conveniently
walked into Williams into a Title Winning Car (even the 4 year old could have
won the title in that car) and then did basically sweet FA after winning the
title in 1997. And…er…since then really.
So time for the World
According to Jacques. Apparently drivers used to have more respect for each
other and didn’t push each other off compared to today’s reckless morons (he
might not have used those exact words). So Jacques, what about the time Senna
pushed Prost off in the final race, or the time Prost pushed Senna off in the
final race or the time when Michael Schumacher tried to punt YOU off in the
final race. Brundle diplomatically responded by saying he saw things ‘slightly
differently’.
Technical update.
Basically the FIA ruled that the holes in Red Bull’s floors were illegal. These
holes are designed to aid airflow in the diffuser.
It’s used to offset an aerodynamic phenomenon called “tyre squirt” (caused by
the rear tyres splitting the airflow sending a bow wave of air into the
diffuser and robbing it of downforce). A hole or slot to negate tyre squirt will
gain some downforce and hence lap time. Is anyone still reading?!?! My
apologies, that is as mind-numbingly technical as this blog will ever get but
at least it ensures that the husband will keep reading my blog for another
week! Anyway the Red Bull’s hole is illegal and Sauber’s slot is legal. Go
Sauber.
Zooming on
through lots of filler such as Natalie going to the Isle of Man with
Mark Webber for the TT motorbike race – actually I was stunned to see it had
been sunny in the Isle of Man (I mean, holy cow they have been getting actual sunshine
– that’s not fair!!) and that the Isle of Man looked actually very attractive.
Then we had
the Most Pointless Segment ever which was never-seen-before pictures of the
McLaren Engineering Briefing (I mean, hello, did that not sound really boring
when scrawled on the production meeting flipchart!?). Basically it was Jenson
Button, Lewis Hamilton and lots of bods sitting in front of computers and that
was it. Maybe it was just a ruse to lead into a feature on Happier Times at
McLaren (you know when they won races and stuff) but now its all gone wrong.
But you know what Scary Ron is in Canada and he means business. Surely? He’s
not the kind of guy to go there for fun (fun is not a word that exists in the
Ron Dennis Dictionary!).
So time for
Q1 – watched at breakneck speed. Like I said there were four competing sporting
events and wailing children to contend with… And dumped out in the dropzone of
doom was Kovalainen, Petrov, Vergne, De La Rosa, Glock, Pic and Narain. The Usual
Suspects.
Rapidly
moving onto Q2 past some Jacques Villeneve waffle. The best most
exciting bit was Maldonaldo slamming his car into the Wall of Champions right
at the death and whilst on a flying lap. Oh dear. Still on the plus side,
Pastor managed not to total his car which in a way was quite impressive and
possibly saved his job. His calamitous crash also meant Button squeaked through
to the final shoot-out in P10 by the skin of his teeth. Notable casualities
from Q2 (ie. failing to make the top 10) were both Williams drivers, Kobayashi
and most surprisingly Kimi Raikkonen. Maybe Kimi was a bit ‘tired’. Round of
applause to Paul Di Resta who cruised into the top 10 in P8 ahead of Massa and
Button. The Beeb will literally be spontaneously combusting with joy at this
news if they were indeed showing qualifying which they were not. Until 10.30pm.
Great real-time
tweet from @GrandPrixDiary: “Opinions are divided as to whether Jacques
Villeneuve looks like Uncle Fester, Lex Luthor, Duncan Goodhew or Michael Stipe
out of REM.”
So the
final countdown (de duh de duh!) and early on in Q3 Lewis went fastest before
Vettel came out and does a stunning lap to slice half a second off to set
provisional pole. Alonso jumped into second place and just as I was getting
faintly excited for a barnstorming finish, Vettel came out and did an even
faster lap. Meanwhile, what might you ask happened to Michael Schumacher (ok,
the 4 year old asked me a lot). On what I thought was his final flying lap, he
suddenly waved and backed off.
Apparently this was because the team had told him he’d run out of time
to complete his final lap. What the heck – why was he sent out with such a fine
margin of time to play with. Mercedes are starting to rival McLaren on the Strategy
Disastometer of Doom. Or maybe he was worried he would miss the start of Germany v Portugal. I'll play safe and blame Mercedes. Again.
So cutting
to the chase, Vettel ended up claiming pole by some distance. Cue the annoying
finger. Oh eff off.
So the
line-up tomorrow looks like this:
1. Vettel,
2. Hamilton, 3. Alonso, 4. Webber (normal service resumed), 5. Rosberg, 6.
Massa, 7. Grosjean (watch him at the start – pile-up guaranteed!), 8. Di Resta,
9. MSC and 10. Button.
Last time
out, qualifying was sensational and the race was dull as the proverbial
dishwater. This time, qualifying was decidedly meh so fingers crossed for a
mental, crazy good ol’ Canada style race.
À
demain.
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