Valencia GP - The Race

Credit: The 4 year old (from this week's School Diary)

Once in a while a race comes along that makes you realise why Formula 1 is the Greatest Show in the World. All hail the Valencia Grand Prix of 2012.

Given the previous snoozefests brought to us by Valencia, those are not words that I expected to be writing but this race was simply awesome from start to finish and immediately has catapaulted into one of my Favourite Races of All Time and incredibly no rain was involved which is normally the backdrop to a Truly Great Race.

Before I get too carried away (but I promise nothing and indeed the husband has already expressed some nervousness about the likely hysteria levels of this blog), I should first apologise for the complete lack of a qualifying blog. I’m frantically searching for a really good reason but the boring truth of the matter is that I was out most of Saturday, then had yet more enforced football watching in the evening and then the husband was at work all day on Sunday. As I dropped him off at the station (even I felt sorry for him being the only commuter – who in the name of insanity organises a strategy day on a Sunday in June!?) he casually remarked “I bet it will be a cracking race today”. Obviously because I know so much about F1, I shot him down in flames. I should have known that in this mad old season, nothing is as you would expect. Anyway I’ve done my sympathetic bit (it doesn’t come naturally as the husband well knows) and the great thing is the husband can read my blog and relive the magic of the race. Well sort of.

I did actually make some notes during the real-live qualifying on Saturday but helpfully Sky did a recap of qualifying just before the race (along with several hundred other recaps of various things) so I thought I could just neatly summarise the…er…recap and we can all pretend that I properly covered qualifying after all. What is important to note here though is that what happened in qualifying actually bears no resemblance to who finished where in the race.

Luca Di Montezemolo - He was really cross after qualifying
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

So here is a summary of qualifying in bullet-point form (you can tell what job I did in a former life can’t you?):

·  Timo Glock had food poisoning so didn’t take part. Ah well.

·  HRT had qualified ahead of Marussia. Lets hear it for Narain (and team-mate) for not being the slowest people on the grid!

·  Mark Webber went out in Q1 for no good reason.

·  Kovalainen started 16^th. This is amazing as he drives a Caterham.

·  Ferrari massively screwed up by gambling that one set of softs would be enough to get into the top ten. Alonso started in 11^th place and Massa in 13^th. Worst of all was that Di Montezemolo had graced Valencia with a personal audience and was looking thunderous at the end of qualifying.

·  Schumacher was in 12^th place, nestled in between the Ferraris.

·  Both Force India’s made it into the top ten.

·  Button was 9^th which was a bit rubbish.

·  The two Lotus cars qualified in 4^th and 5^th and were looking very fast.

·  Nico Rosberg started 6^th but was held up by Lewis Hamilton on the last corner of the outlap. Mercedes were very annoyed, went to the stewards to complain but Lewis was found Not Guilty.

·  Maldonaldo qualifed in 3^rd. There was general amazement about this.

·  Vettel was on pole by 4/10^ths of a second over Lewis Hamilton who was in 2^nd place. In contrast, only 6/10^ths covered P2 to P10. Vettel’s car has lots of new bits and pieces like a new exhaust and a new bodywork package. I’m saying nothing except Adrian Newey was doing a LOT of scribbling in his Top Secret Pad on the pitlane in Canada. Vettel at the age of 24 has equalled Prost’s number of pole positions and he is about as fun to watch. I don’t mean this in a good way.

·  So there were seven different teams in the top ten. This generally got people very excited and hopeful of a good race but even Brundle wasn’t going wild for the prospect of a Great Race. But hey, we can all get it wrong!

Hurrah that’s all sorted and now onto the race. I should explain that I ended up watching on Sky, even though lovely Jake Humphrey was back on the Beeb, due to the fact that the BBC coverage had failed to record as there was a clash with Four in a Bed. That probably reveals a lot about our not-so-highbrow televisual habits during the week.

So we had a line-up of Simon Lazenby-Thing (still apparently in a job), Martin Brundle, Johnny Herbert and the charisma-bypass zone that is Nick Heidfeld. He might be a lovely chap but he has the most boring voice I have ever heard in an F1 pitlane since Mika Hakkinen and at least Mika was mainly driving cars so we didn’t get to listen to him much. What’s the betting though Mika pops up in a future race seeing as Sky’s New Idea is to bring back a former F1 driver who isn’t doing much nowadays as a guest pundit.

We were shown some old footage of the 1999 European GP at Nürburgring which was a totally mental race, full of crashes and constant drama in torrential conditions. Johnny Herbert won for Stewart GP in the team’s one and only race win. I remember watching that race massively jetlagged in South Africa while lots of alpha male types were incredulous that a woman knew anything at all about Formula 1. Happy days.

Johnny Herbert driving for Stewart GP
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Next up, the obligatory quick interview with Christian Horner who had presumably hunted down the Sky cameras while we were reliving classic Nürburgring moments, then a surprisingly entertaining feature on McLaren (oh the irony) training the Sky Sports team to do a pitstop. By the end, the Sky team had got it down to 6 seconds. Worth remembering that small nugget of information.

Brundle working The Grid

So time for ♯MartinsGridWalk. It started a bit shakily as none of the cars were on the grid, then Martin and his camera crew had to try and avoid getting run over as the cars slowly made their way onto the grid. We found out that Massa appeared to have a person who held his sunglasses for him (or maybe that was Martin being droll) – I think he interviewed Felipe but I can’t remember what was said. It wasn’t important anyway. Button was in conversation with someone whose name was apparently Mikey Muscles (not sure if Mikey is an Official Sunglasses Carrier or does something more important). There was a very amusing interchange between Button and Brundle. Jenson asked Brundle about Le Mans (which he took part in the previous weekend) and remarked to Brundle how fast the young kids all are these days. To which Brundle made a comment to Jenson being ‘out of position because he didn’t get the job done in qualifying’. Time out guys.

Then Martin ran into his old friend, Tanja from German TV – I noted he wasn’t sarcastic to her! He managed a very quick word with Pastor Maldonaldo which might have been longer but Pastor needed the toilet and Martin gave him quite detailed directions to the nearest one. Pastor actually seemed quite grateful but I think he had forgotten he was still on live TV. Oh dear. Quick chats then with Kamui Kobayashi who seemed quite animated and excited by his own laconic standards and then a word with Ross Brawn. If you’re ever playing or devising F1 bingo, make sure you plump for a Ross Brawn comment on tyre degradation. He never fails!

Slightly disturbing shot of what appeared to be Bernie talking to Massa by pinning him (Massa being pinned, not the other way round!) up against the wall. We never got to the bottom of that but perhaps Massa’s Official Sunglasses Carrier took the wrong sunglasses by mistake.  As the seconds ticked down to the start, we saw lots of wannabe WAG types in bikinis standing in a swimming pool with a phenomenal view of the circuit. There is no justice in the world.

Time For the Start and Go Go Go...! Vettel, Hamilton and Grosjean all had amazing starts but especially Vettel which was potentially ominous. Maldonaldo slithered backwards and was squeezed out by Kimi, then Grosjean. Alonso had a stupendous start and had rocketed up into 8^th position by the end of lap 1.

By lap 2, Vettel had pulled out a 2.2 second lead over Lewis in 2^nd place. By lap 3, his lead had increased to 4 seconds. I was already praying for a mechanical fault or tyre delamination on Vettel’s car (in a totally non-dangerous way of course) otherwise this could be the most boring race ever. As is the way in Valencia…usually. Grosjean was rapidly catching Lewis and Kimi was having a massive scrap with Maldonaldo which for my money had Imminent Crash Followed By Safety Car written all over it. Meanwhile, Rosberg had plummeted down to 11^th place and Schuey was still pootling around in 12^th spot.

We had 1000s of replays of the start all of which (strangly enough) confirmed the above. All the meanwhile, Vettel was opening up a whopping lead which by lap 4 was 6.6 seconds. It wasn’t helping that Lewis was really holding up Grosjean (odd to think it was that way round but there you go). Just as I was thinking to myself that Lewis wasn’t having a good race, Radio McLaren told him he was doing a great job. I know Lewis is a bit fragile but like the rest of us he presumably could see Grosjean right on his tail and that the guy in front of him was…er…nowhere to be seen.

Vettel's car looked something like this

There was a blur of Sebastian Vettel Fastest Laps™ before I was jogged back into consciousness by a collision between Narain Karthikeyan and Charles Pic as they battled for 22^nd place. That’s commitment for you.

By lap 10, Vettel had opened up a 10 second lead and the following lap, Grosjean put a stunning move on Lewis Hamilton to pass him on the outside. We all hoped now it was Game On but depressingly Vettel just kept extending his lead. New exhaust and bodywork you say? Had Newey inserted some kind of missile underneath it or what?! First into the pits was Button and Perez but they were languishing so far down no one really cared where they came out. Finally Kimi got past Maldonaldo in another great overtaking move. We salute Lotus and their brilliant, cavalier drivers who like to overtake!

Alonso meanwhile had overtaken Hulkenberg and Maldonaldo which meant by lap 15, he was now in 3^rd place (without having pitted). Lewis came into the pits and incredibly nothing went wrong. We were told that Sam Michael at McLaren had promised the pit crew a round of beers if they did a good job although they did send Lewis back out into traffic so maybe the Pitstop Strategy person might only get an orange juice.

The lovely Nicole - she wears a lot of straw hats. I'm saying nothing.

Stop Press – we had a Straw Hat on the track (its hard to write those words without mentally saying them in a ‘Bryn from Gavin and Stacey’ voice). Anyway, it didn’t last long once Kimi and Maldonaldo’s cars had given Straw Hat the 200 miles an hour treatment.  

There were lots and lots of pitstops in rapid succession including Alonso who dived in and rejoined in 9^th place. It didn’t seem that amazing a track position but since starting this blog, I have realised its always worth keeping track of where Fernando is. Honestly not meant to be a spoiler but I guess it kind of is!

Vettel came into the pits and tediously re-emerged back into the lead. In the words of Martin Brundle, he was looking a “very, very good prospect”. The 4 year old got temporarily excited to see Schuey was in 6^th place, as did I until I realised he had not yet pitted. Blast it.  And to boot, Michael was causing something of a traffic jam as dozens of cars were piled up behind him. He defended his position brilliantly from Alonso for a while but eventually had to yield and let the Ferrari pass.

On lap 20, Schuey and Webber pitted which I remember feeling quite relieved as it was getting very congested out there and I couldn’t take another race where some nutter crashed into Schuey.

Time for our next incident (told you this was a corker of a race and, folks, this is the tip of the iceberg!) and it involved Senna and Kobayashi (two very likely candidates). They had a coming together after Senna didn’t spot Kamui coming up on the inside, resulting in a spectacular spin by the Williams which miraculously missed the wall and several other drivers. Poor old Bruno hobbled back to the pits to patch up the car and then got slapped with a drive through penalty.

Meanwhile, Vettel was still doing fastest laps (this was the one and only boring dimension of the race but in an odd way this only makes what followed even more exciting!) and we were told he was so many seconds or minutes (possibly even hours) in the lead, he could do another stop and still stay out in 1^st place. Imagine our joy.

Paul Di Resta eventually pitted on lap 24. I can’t make that sound any more exciting. Sorry! Meanwhile (Smug Portent Alert), I have scribbled in my notes at this point in the race how well it always comes together for Ferrari (well obviously, I mean Alonso) on race day.

Jean-Eric Vergne - Take a bow
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

But just as the trophy engraver was finishing the ‘L’ on Sebastian Vettel, we had a Race Changing Crash on lap 28. Who would have thought a couple of backmarkers fighting over 17^th place would turn the race on its head. Villain of the hour (or saviour of the race – discuss?), Jean-Eric Vergne suddenly cut across the track and weaved into the Caterham of Kovalainen resulting in both cars picking up punctures and lots of tyre being shredded everywhere. Time for the Safety Car. And bang went Vettel’s 20 second lead in one fell swoop. It wasn’t really fair but then fair can be boring and who wants boring!!

Most of the cars trundled into the pits to get their tyres changed including Lewis Hamilton. Time to crank up the McLaren Pitstop Disastometer and gazooks, it pinged up to 8 after a totally calamitous pitstop which meant that Alonso passed Lewis in the pits. The pitstop took a shocking 14 seconds which is a whole 8 seconds slower than the Sky Sports crew. I’m guessing that order for the round of drinks has been cancelled.

So time to take stock of the running order behind the Safety Car: 1. Vettel, 2. Grosjean, 3. Alonso, 4. Ricciardo (yes, really), 5. Kimi, and 6. Hamilton. After an eternity, the safety car came in on lap 33 and on the restart, Alonso jumped Grosjean to take 2^nd place. Romain, my friend, watch and learn from the master. Just as one Ferrari driver displayed his brilliance in front of his home crowd, the other Ferrari driver made contact with Kobayashi and got a puncture. They’ve probably stopped caring what happens to Massa at Ferrari. But then who needs another driver when you have Alonso!

Updated image of Vettel's car

Then A SENSATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (I’ve left Bryn behind and now got the voice of Murray Walker in my head) on lap 34. Vettel was SLOWING and was OUT OF THE RACE. This meant that ALONSO (who qualified in 11^th place) was leading the race. Stone the flaming crows. Crofty in the commentary box almost had a seizure and the camera flashed onto Adrian Newey looking utterly devastated. Cheer up Adrian, anyone would think you didn’t still have a driver in the race! Poor Mark Webber, the forgotten man of Red Bull.

Meanwhile, Massa was having a disastrous pitstop (did Ferrari borrow the McLaren crew for a laugh?) where the wrong tyres were put on his car. But never mind hey.

The 4 year old suddenly noticed that Schuey was in 5^th place and asked whether five people could be on the podium. Imagine his lunatic celebrations if Schuey ever got on the podium?! As if that would ever happen. Suddenly Maldonaldo was on the charge, taking Webber, Hulkenberg and Di Resta. Clearly Good Driver Maldonaldo was in the house as opposed to Bad Driver Maldonaldo who crashes a lot.

Some bad news filtered through onto our screens. Narain Karthikeyan had been given a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pitlane. On the down-side, this was hardly going to help his race but lets take the positives where we can – he was still at least in the race! Then to the general consternation of the commentators, me and (less so) the 4 year old who merely asked after every single incident ‘is it Schumacher?’, we discovered that Lewis Hamilton was under investigation.

Alonso meantime was doing ‘A Vettel’ and putting in some stunning laptimes while out in front. Then we had A FURTHER SENSATIONAL DEVELOPMENT. On lap 41, Grosjean’s car started slowing down and eventually just stopped. So after losing the driver who was leading the race, now the guy in 2^nd place had conked out. So lucky old Lewis moved into 2^nd place with Kimi in 3^rd and Maldonaldo in 4^th place. Just as I was starting to get a bit giddy about Schuey being nicely placed, he promptly pitted from 5^th place. Amidst all the chaos (and you ain’t seen nothing yet!), it emerged that somehow, inexplicably, a Caterham, driven by Petrov, had reached the dizzying heights of 10^th place. A Caterham might actually get into the points. Complete madness.

Seemingly forgetting that Alonso was in the lead, Radio Lotus were telling Kimi that he could win the race and Radio McLaren was telling Hamilton he could win. So we had three world champions slugging it out with 13 laps to go. The 4 year old and me were firmly rooted to the sofa and not moving for anyone or anything. Perez had woken up and was absolutely flying in 7^th place and Schuey was looking very fast. Interesting times.

Time for another collision. I don’t think we’d now had one for a whole 5 laps. This time involving Ricciardo and Petrov. Oooops – goodbye to those precious first points for Caterham. We found out that no further action was being taken against Lewis after the Mysterious Investigation. Lap 50 and Schumacher put a brilliant move on Button to move into 8^th place. Webber got in on the action and sneaked past Button who just looked painfully slow. The next victim to be gobbled up by Schuey was Perez, followed by Di Resta. With two laps remaining, Schuey was in 6^th place.

Lewis Hamilton (or is it Basil Fawlty?)

Kimi was closing on Hamilton whose tyres had just fallen off the proverbial cliff and he clung on as long as he could but ultimately could not delay the inevitable and Kimi passed him for 2^nd place. Next up to have a sniff was Maldonaldo and there was a frantic battle out on track as Lewis desperately tried to keep him behind. Eventually Maldonaldo tried to take Lewis on the outside and after drifting off the track, Lewis refused to budge and let him back on. Result: one McLaren sent hurtling into the barriers and an incandescent Lewis Hamilton who (much in the same way as the 4 year old when playing the Wii) hurled his steering wheel out of the car. I must admit that I initially thought Lewis was as much to blame as Pastor by over-zealously clinging onto his position and adopting a win or bust mentality. But various replays have shown that Maldonaldo was a bit of a muppet although Lewis perhaps should have kept a cooler head. Alain Prost he ain’t.

Despite having my own live-in Schumacher Watch, I had somehow missed the fact that Schumacher was now in THIRD PLACE WITH A LAP TO GO. Previously he had been behind the Hulk as had Webber but now Webber was bearing down on Schumacher. To say there was some tension and screaming in our lounge might be a bit of a understatement. The 4 year old was just repeating everything I was saying which was probably ill-advised but can be roughly translated as ‘go away, Webber, you poo-poo head’. It was like the Longest Lap Ever but surely the racing gods could not deprive Schumacher of a podium with a few corners to go. And they didn’t dare. Crossing the line past the chequered flag was 1. Alonso, 2. Kimi and 3. Schumacher. Is that not the best podium ever?! Old School Podiums Rock.

Rolling back the years!

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

1.     Alonso – A truly stunning drive by a supremely talented racing driver. Remember he qualified in 11^th place.

2.     Raikkonen – Superb performance (you can see I’m going to run out of superlatives soon).

3.     MICHAEL SCHUMACHER – A brilliant drive and it was absolutely fantastic (and ever so slightly emotional) to see him on the podium again after all these years. The 4 year old was beside himself. We are not worthy.

4.     Webber – Good old Mark. You can always rely on him to deliver a 4^th place (and a very useful 12 points). But, he is 2^nd place in the drivers championship so who is laughing now?

5.     Hulkenberg – So much of his race passed me by but a very good effort in a Force India.

6.     Rosberg – Kept his head down and did pretty well.

The podium scenes were awesome. All the drivers were deliriously happy to be there although with Kimi it can be hard to tell. There was quite a love-in with the Ferrari Race Engineer (Andrea Stella) who had worked with all three former World Champions on the podium. Word has it that Schuey sung along to the Italian Anthem (force of habit) but the Spanish cameras were firmly fixed on their national hero, Alonso.

What a blinding race although it did shred most of my nervous system along the way! I’m off for a lie-down (it is nearly midnight). Next up in this most brilliant of seasons, it’s the British Grand Prix. I’ll have some valium at the ready.

Who do you think you are...Stirling Moss?

Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel...a three horse race?

I haven't suddenly catapaulted myself back into the 1950s though the husband does probably dream of another life where the "hi honey, I'm home" is greeted with a gin & tonic, a pristine house and the kids fast asleep in bed. The reality most days is overtired kids in meltdown, a dining room that looks like the scene at the end of that Travis video and a wife who is On The Edge.

But when thinking about who have been the stand out drivers so far this season, it occurred to me that each generation instinctively adds a different name to the end of the rhetorical phrase “who do you think you are...” when talking about someone speeding or driving like a lunatic on a motorway. I think Sir Stirling Moss was the first racing driver whose name became synonymous with fast driving and so "who do you think you are, Stirling Moss?" was supposedly the standard question all British policemen asked speeding motorists. Well allegedly. And come to think of it, I was still hearing this phrase being bandied around even when I was young which is obviously going back a bit but still was many, many years after Moss had stopped racing!

Then at some stage, this saying morphed into "who do you think you are...Nigel Mansell?". The Mighty Moustache was hugely adored by the man (or the odd woman) on the street and I think he was the first to oust Stirling Moss in this everyday kind of banter. I suppose in between there was James Hunt who every man wished that he could be but because most mere mortals were so far removed from the insanely cool and glamorous world of James Hunt, I guess it didn’t really take off.

The best “who do you think you are” story that I have ever heard involved Ayrton Senna. During one British Grand Prix weekend, Senna was running late for free practice. He was pulled over by a police officer for speeding and the officer came to the window (presumably looking Ayrton Senna right in the eye!) and the conversation (apparently) went a bit like this:

Plod:    “Who do you think you are, Nigel Mansell?”

Senna: “Actually no, I’m Ayrton Senna.” Doh.

I think during the 1990s, all the intense Damon love meant that Damon Hill became the next driver to be name-checked for a while. Now I suspect it might be Lewis Hamilton (more so than Jenson Button). Lewis definitely seems more of a speed adrenalin junkie than Jenson which brings me onto my main point. We are now one-third of the way through the season. One of the most tantalising aspects of the 2012 season (as trumpeted over and over again by Sky) was the fact that a record SIX current or former F1 World Champions would be racing alongside each other. Seven races in seems as arbitrary a point as any to rank them on their performances so far.

So who is top of the class with hundreds of smiley faces and who is sobbing in the corner with a pointy dunce hat on? In order of brilliance (descending into mediocre then utterly crud), we have as follows:

1.     Fernando Alonso

He is only 2 points behind the leader (Lewis Hamilton) in a car that is basically a bit rubbish. Those in the know were saying early on in the season this was the worst car Ferrari had produced in 20 years (no mean feat given the diabonical effort that was the 1996 Ferrari). David Coulthard, not someone prone to hyperbole, said in Australia that there was something “fundamentally wrong” with that car. But still Alonso has been stunningly consistent all season picking up points in every single race. This has been one of the craziest, most unpredictable seasons (7 different winners etc) but Alonso seems to cope brilliantly with all tracks, all conditions and whatever chaos is unfolding around him.

2.     Lewis Hamilton

Currently leading the World Championship with a win (in Canada) finally under this belt and like Alonso has been superbly consistent (finished in the points in every race) and so it was very tough choosing between him and Fernando. But given where we are so far and the fact that Lewis has a much superior car (taking nothing away from his racing), Alonso just pips Lewis.

3.     Sebastian Vettel

Lying in 3^rd place in the Drivers Championship. Aside from one aberration in Malaysia (involving an HRT – what else?) he has finished in the points every race (it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that consistency is the key this season…so far). Somehow Vettel hasn’t impressed me quite as much as in previous seasons. A lingering suspicion remains that he is most comfortable and in the zone when leading from the front in The Best Car.

4.     Kimi Raikkonen

No one knew what to expect when Kimi returned. Least of all, I suspect, Kimi himself. He currently has the 4^th most points of all the former World Champions so in a way the stats don’t lie. Not many people would have bet money on Kimi in a Lotus having been on the podium twice already. The last couple of races have been a bit stuttery and (whisper it quietly) Romain Grosjean is giving his more illustrious (if slightly barking mad) team-mate a good old run for his money.

5.     Jenson Button

As with 1 and 2, it was pretty tough ranking 5 and 6 but on the strength of Jenson’s race win a long, long time ago in Australia and another podium in China, he just squeaked into 5^th place. But his last few races have been abysmal (2 points in the last 4 races) and by his own admission he was “lost and confused” after the Canadian GP. A truly great driver will find a way to make the car work for them and while Button is very good, I don’t think he is quite as naturally talented as Fernando or Lewis. Sorry Jenson.

6.     Michael Schumacher

Oh Michael, where did it all go wrong? As much as it pains me (though it would delight many others) to rank the Great Michael Schumacher last, we cannot escape the facts. Seven races. Five retirements. Two 10^th places. Just two paltry pathetic points. Even Jean-Eric Vergne has more than that. It has been a truly terrible season. Aside from his magnificent pole position in Monaco (and even that was hit with a 5 place grid penalty), Michael’s season has lurched from one disaster to another. One massive point in Michael’s defence is that he has been struck with a hideous catalogue of reliability problems (gearbox failure, loose wheel, falling fuel pressure and a jammed DRS flap). I suppose it can only get better. Surely?

The great thing about nailing my colours to the mast so early on is everyone (ie. the husband) can snigger away when Jenson Button wins 4 races on the trot… Still there’s a whopping 13 races to go. Anything can happen!

Bahrain GP - The Race

Alonso racing in Bahrain (by the 4 year old)

Well despite the collective might of the Bahraini protestors, Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and George Galloway (oh and 17 MPs), the Bahrain GP did actually take place. Time for George to move on and find another cause célèbre to vent his spleen on. Oh here’s an idea, maybe he could just focus some of his energy on his new constituency of Bradford West, a by-election victory modestly described by George as “the most sensational victory in British political history. Although admittedly this statement was made by the same man who pretended to be a cat on Celebrity Big Brother. I need say no more. I thought Martin Brundle as ever summarised the issues very succinctly at the start of the race. His two abiding emotions were confusion that he couldn’t reconcile the images of violence that we all were seeing on TV going on in Bahrain and his personal impressions of the country. And also sadness for F1 as this weekend just had not worked. He pointed out that there had been cricket and golf tournaments taking place in Bahrain on preceding weekends and no one hadn’t given a monkey’s. Quite.

Right that’s the boring political stuff over and so back to race-blogging. In a round-up of news since qualifying, the 4 year old received the further devastating news that Schumacher was now starting from 22^nd having changed his gear box overnight. More plaintive cries of “why does Schumacher never win?”. At this rate, I might have to buy him a boxset of F1 in the 90s and early 00s where he can watch Schuey cruising to endless victories lapping everyone else in the field 72 times whilst having time to have a quick picnic lunch and rejoin in the lead.

Ho hum, I’m perusing my notes (helpfully scribbled all over by the 1 year old) of the several hours of build up on Sky and most of it was deathly dull to be honest. Simon Lazenby is a bit like a Dementor – he just sucks the life and excitement out of every race. We had Natalie Pinkham interviewing Bruno Senna in an acid bright t-shirt and khaki hotpants (Natalie, not Bruno). All very on trend and maybe that is simply the point of Natalie. We’re not actually meant to take her seriously are we? Anyway who knows as my brain temporarily turned to mush during the interview with poor Bruno. We were told that a sandstorm might be on the way. Time to power up the Sand Monitor of Doom – surely McLaren with their endless freight containers of technological equipment would have such a thing…!?

Next up, Martin Brundle and Michael Schumacher were doing the Track Guide. Not quite sure why they were sitting back to back (maybe someone can enlighten me?) but Schuey was straight in with a ‘joke’ about how they were like a grandfather talking to a grandmother. Bless. Its amazing to think that 20 years ago they were both team-mates (sometimes I feel very old) before the days when Schumacher was All Powerful and would veto potential team-mates. Brundle said drivers really had to multi-task to assimilate all the details and information in just negotiating one corner and they both agreed that women were brilliant multi-taskers. I wonder if Brundle and Schuey once came back from an overseas race with a poxy fridge magnet for Mrs Brundle and Mrs Schumacher and they’re still frantically trying to make for it. Yes, there is a story there and it’s a sad one. You could tell Martin really enjoyed talking about the track with Schuey and even Damon (presumably with a gun held to his head) managed to say the Mercedes team owed a lot to Michael.

Bit of Sky filler (including the first Christian Horner interview – many more to follow – of the afternoon) and it was time for the Martin Brundle Gridwalk™. He told us that Kimi had dozens of new tyres to play with and would be One to Watch. He had a quick chat with Paul Di Resta and commented on his very impressive achievement of missing the second practice session and still managing to qualify in 10^th place. Maybe the 2012 season is going to be all about the tyres. Come Monaco, no one will bother with practice and will just rock up on qualifying day with dozens of sets of shiny, new tyres causing Jean Todt to spontaneously combust. As if to echo my (barking mad) thoughts, Ross Brawn confirmed it would be a multi-stop race and ‘tyre degradation’ would be critical. Its safe to say that tyre degradation was the buzzword(s) of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Everyone was banging on about it ad infinitum and, to be honest, ad nauseum.

Then Martin spotted that there was Something Different on the Red Bull car. He couldn’t actually tell us what it was as the back of the car was being guarded by Red Bull mechanics. How 2010 and indeed how 2011. What utterly brilliant and ingenuous little device has Adrian Newey dreamt up now? Or as the husband called him (in a moment of rare wit for the husband a Sunday), the Master of the Dark Arts. Martin interrogated someone called ‘Peddles’ from Red Bull who said they might have changed something but we would need to go back to last week’s coverage and work out what’s different. What a tease this Peddles is! Its probably something to do with a diffuser that all the other teams (Lotus, Mercedes) will complain about. Sadly for the second race in a row there was no Random Celebrity at a Race (not even a glimpse of never-knowingly-overdressed Nicole Scherzinger sashaying through the paddock). I’m sure normal service will be resumed in Barcelona not to mention Monaco which will be fit to bursting with minor Royals, stellar heavyweight celebs (J Lo, George Clooney etc) and z-listers like Geri Halliwell. Rest assured, I’ll be in full rant mode about their petrolhead credentials come that race weekend.

Apparently not since 2003, has there been 4 different winners in the first 4 races. Who won the title in 2003? Michael Schumacher just as he had the previous 3 years so lets not get too excited shall we? Anyway its Go! Go! Go! In Bahrain. Vettel zoomed off into the lead and both Rosberg and Button had diabolical starts. But then Button always has rubbish starts (maybe he needs a Race Start Strategy Guy of his own – hopefully Martin Whitmarsh is on the case). Grosjean propelled himself into 4^th place and Alonso was just behind him in 5^th. All the cars seemed to get make it round the Difficult First Corner, even the HRTs.

Suddenly OUT (we were told) was Petrov who appeared to have no wheel. Although this turned out to be Kovalainen but I missed the bit where they corrected themselves so spent most of the race totally confused about the fortunes of the Caterham drivers. In the nicest possible way it didn’t really impair my enjoyment of the race. On lap 3 in a utterly shocking development, Massa did a great move to get past Kimi of all people for 7^th place. As Brundle said, he’s driving like a man possessed. Wouldn’t you if you faced the sack every week or maybe he’s trying to make sure when he does get sacked, another team does actually want to hire him. Poor Felipe, he’s too kind a soul really for the grim dog-eat-dog world of Ferrari. By lap 5, Kimi had bludgeoned his way past Massa again and Grosjean was absolutely flying. First he overtook Webber and then much more impressively he did a brilliant move to squeeze past Lewis Hamilton on lap 7. Poor old Lewis. When is it all going to go right (clue – it goes a lot more wrong before the end). There was a mention of Daniel Ricciardo and I suddenly realised I had forgotten about all about him. From 6^th on the grid to 17^th. That’ll take some explaining.

Already by lap 8, Button was on the radio reporting problems with his tyres and the first round of pitstops kicked off. Gre-a-t. Blogs are hard enough to write without everyone starting to pit from lap 8. The 4 year old suddenly piped up “Alonso’s tyres are going off too and can you write that down”. So there you have it, my child can’t read anything more complex than ‘Mum went shopping’…‘Dad got cross’ (or is that real life?) but is able to opine accurately on tyre degradation. Sure enough Alonso went hurtling off into the pits. Hamilton also came into the pits and there was a Mini-Disaster as the left rear wheel-nut got stuck and both Alonso and Webber leap-frogged him out of the pits. There was a massive tussle between Lewis and Rosberg for position (its fair to say both are ‘uncompromising’ drivers) where IMHO Rosberg forced Lewis wide. Anyway Lewis edged back in front and radioed into the team to ask “what happened”. A very calm voice replied there was a long way to go. Not that they were fearing a Lewis meltdown but the person on the other end did sound a bit like a trained counsellor. We were told that Rosberg and Lewis were ‘under investigation’ for that incident. Rosberg started protesting it wasn’t his fault. Er, the camera doesn’t lie, Nico.

Lap 13 and we were told that Di Resta was leading (ok briefly). There was so much overtaking going on all over the track just like at the last race. Button passed Alonso in a cool Button-esque move, Kimi took Webber and the learned commentators remarked this was a very unusual place to overtake. As if normal racing rules apply in the world of Kimi Raikkonen! Then Hamilton passed Alonso for 8^th place and given Lewis and Fernando aren’t exactly best buds ever since their “I hate my McLaren team-mate” season (a modern variant of the Prost-Senna “I hate my McLaren team-mate” season) that must have cheered Lewis up a tiny bit.

So time to take stock on lap 16 – the frontrunners were 1. Vettel, 2. Grosjean, 3. Kimi, 4. Webber, 5. Button and 6. Lewis. Michael Schumacher was in 13^th place having started 22^nd – but there were a lot of good cars and drivers ahead of him (having scythed through the dross) so it was hard to see him picking up too many points. Poor Schumi. Radio McLaren contacted Lewis to say they were switching to Plan B. Tannoy alert for Ted to find out what Plan B was (I’m heavily resisting any music related ‘jokes’). Meanwhile Vettel was out there in the lead doing what he does best, ie. driving a car with an ‘innovative’ secret device that gives him a massive advantage. Not saying anything but this car was the same car that being guarded in the pitlane. I wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen Ross Brawn and Martin Whitmarsh filling up Complaint Forms at their respective track-side desks with all the monitors. Although they probably have minions to do those kind of things.

Meanwhile finally after being all over the back of Grosjean’s car for a few laps, Kimi got in front of him on lap 25. Time for another round of pitstops. In went Lewis and there was ANOTHER Mini-Disaster with the left rear wheel-nut. I’m guessing his radio-feed would be fairly unprintable. Martin Whitmarsh might actually need to shout at some people. Just like Ron Dennis would have. Good old Ron – what a (non ray) of sunshine he was but its fair to say this sort of thing wouldn’t have kept happening on his watch.  

There was some brilliant hammer and tongs racing between Alonso and Rosberg which led to some very aggressive driving from Rosberg to keep Alonso behind including his new specialty of forcing a driver off the track. We had some classic fist-shaking from Alonso and a further announcement that Rosberg’s and Alonso’s cars were being investigated. Two investigations have been opened and one driver features in both. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that Nico might be in a spot of bother. All this palaver for 8^th place – still 4 points is 4 points I guess. If this had been Schumacher forcing drivers off the track, there would have been general condemnation and blood-letting but as it was baby-faced Nico, the commentators didn’t seem too bothered. Just saying.

So the half-way point roll call read: 1. Vettel, 2. Kimi, 3. Grosjean, 4. Di Resta, 5. Webber, 6. Button. However, Kimi was really catching Vettel – there might be a danger that Vettel might actually have to race someone for his lead and it would be a lunatic in a Lotus to boot. How marvellous! It was quickly time for a Williams Retirement™. Maldonaldo’s car appeared to blow up (ok he got a puncture but there was a lot of spinning and smoke) and that was the end of his race. Webber managed to pass Di Resta for his favoured fourth place but we didn’t really care as Kimi was now RIGHT BEHIND the Red Bull of Vettel. Brundle started waxing lyrically about seeing Kimi sauntering down the pitlane without a care in the world before the race. Maybe Kimi is the new James Hunt. I like him way more now than in his McLaren and Ferrari era. I’m so fickle. On lap 36, Kimi had a long look down the inside of Vettel but didn’t quite manage to pass the Red Bull. Non-Turning Point Alert.

Time for yet more pitstops and this time McLaren didn’t manage to stuff it up but the damage was already done as Lewis was languishing in 10^th place or as the 4 year old said the mechanics were ‘silly poo-poo heads’. Lap 40 and Vettel and Kimi pitted AT THE SAME TIME but Vettel stayed in the lead. Red Bull called the shots there and really Lotus should have bought in Kimi a lap or two earlier. Vettel then just started tediously pulling away. Oh buggeroo – we wanted a wheel to wheel Grandstand Finish and it didn’t look we were going to get one.

At this point, the commentators suddenly said ‘if you’re joining us after the 4-4 thriller from Old Trafford…’ and in one fell swoop sent the husband into a huge depression as this meant his football team now only had a 3 point lead at The Top of the Premiership. How cruel can life be? Imagine his misery if he was a supporter of Portsmouth or Wolves. Of course, as he tells me on many many occasions, he too has known dark times when his team didn’t win something for one year in the 1970s.

Back to lap 52 of the Bahrain GP and Nico managed to muscle past Di Resta. It might be worth, Paul, complaining loudly on your team radio, that you were pushed off the track by Nico – not saying this actually  happened but it would be highly believable. In a supreme moment of Murrayness, just after Radio McLaren told Button he was doing a great job and there were places to be had, he came in for a 4^th pitstop with a left rear puncture. What is the deal with McLaren and left rear wheels! He rejoined only to have his car start making some really bad noises and he was forced to retire. What a stinker of a weekend for McLaren. Ron, come back soon, your old team needs you!

And so to the chequered flag where Vettel won his first race of the season. Cue the Vettel raised finger of victory. That finger really bugs me.

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

1.     Vettel – Led from start to finish just like old times. Yawn.

2.     Raikkonen – All hail, Kimi. Its great to have you back!

3.     Grosjean – Great racecraft and he has improved as a driver beyond all belief.

4.     Webber – His fourth 4^th place in 4 races. Says it all.

5.     Rosberg – Subsequently cleared by the stewards and this was Alonso’s response on Twitter: I think you are going to have fun in future races! You can defend position as you want and you can overtake outside the track! Enjoy! ;)))

6.     Di Resta – Fantastic job by driver and team.

Quick mention for the most cringeworthy moment of the entire Sky coverage – when Natalie Pinkham asked Kimi after the race if he was going to have a celebratory ice-cream. The look on Kimi’s face was priceless. We’re four races in now and Sky just isn’t doing it for me with the exception of Martin Brundle. Even the commentary this week was riddled with mistakes and Croft needs to STOP SHOUTING ALL THE TIME. I miss the relaxed, friendly banter of the Beeb team who actually look like they have fun at races. The Sky team in comparison are wooden, awkward and have zero charisma. There was a great moment when Jake and DC bumped into Martin after the race –  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/17808455. “He’s still working in television apparently”. Love it.

Next up, the Circuit de Catalunya. I’m a huge fan of Barcelona as a city but the races there are normally a massive snoozefest. I’m praying for rain. Will we have a 5^th different winner in 5 races? We shall have to see. Til then, adios!