ONE point is all that is needed now for Sebastian Vettel and if he doesn’t win the championship, I will flush my head down the toilet seat and film the embarrassing moment on YouTube! The only man who can now deny the inevitable is Jenson Button and on their driving standards this season, these two have been a class apart from anyone else.
I have given Vettel so many accolades this season, so it’s only fair for me to praise Button in this blog. Since his sensational last-gasp victory in Montreal back in June, Jenson has been driving out of skin. For me, he is in the best form of his career, driving that even outdoes what he was achieving in his championship winning campaign of 2009. He has put in more consistent and stronger performances than Lewis Hamilton throughout the campaign and has now made himself the default no.1 at McLaren. Button had a couple of shaky moments at the start of the championship; no-one should forget him driving into the wrong pit when leading in China and he had a dismal weekend at the Nurburgring, but more often than not, he has delivered when the task is set to him. Once again, he elevated himself to high status in Singapore last weekend, outperforming what the car was capable of. Late on, he put in a spurt to almost give the viewers a tasty finish and although it never looked like he could usurp Vettel at the front, he kept fighting until the end. The Red Bull/Vettel combination looks like it could dominate Formula One for a number of years, but carry on with this momentum into next season and Jenson Button does have a chance to win the world championship again.
Whilst we continue to see the brilliant from Jenson Button, the bad continue to overweigh the good from Lewis Hamilton. He got into some unnecessary scraps throughout the Singapore weekend with his nemesis from Monaco earlier in the year, Felipe Massa. In the dying moments of Q3, Ferrari and McLaren stupidly sent all their cars out together at the same time, which left them squabbling for track space. Massa and Hamilton took their grudge a bit too far, dicing in a position where an accident was a silly possibility. On this occasion, Massa looked to be deliberately holding up Hamilton, who wanted to clearly get on with his one qualifying attempt. There was no need for games for the Brazilian, as he re-stirred a pot that has been brewing all season. 24 hours later, I predicted a potential clash in the race between the two and ultimately, they delivered. The contact at turn seven damaged a tyre on the Ferrari and left Lewis needing emergency front-wing repairs. Hamilton was given a drive-through penalty for causing a collision. Although he has his platinum card from the race stewards, which at this rate, might be upgraded to gold class, I felt the penalty was a bit harsh. The turn-in point was clumsy from Hamilton and Massa didn’t deserve to have his wheel punctured. However, it wasn’t an incident that was deliberate, malicious or idiotic, just daft. Hamilton was penalised just as much as Massa at the end of the day, so the stewards could have let it be as a racing incident. Says a lot for Massa doesn’t it; he finishes ninth and Hamilton fifth, despite the McLaren driver making five trips into the pits during the race.
Felipe took it badly and showed his emotion in an unsavoury moment in the driver’s interview pen afterwards. Hamilton was talking about his race to the German television station, RTL when Massa applauded him saying ‘well done,’ and shoved him. Hamilton said ‘don’t touch me; pal’ twice, before concluding his interview and going off to cool down in the hospitality lounge. There was no need for Massa to do this and his conduct was frankly, appalling. If he’d been a bit more aggressive, he might be up for an FIA charge against assault and have his racing license taken away. For me, Lewis did the right thing by not responding aggressively and walking off without murmuring a frustrating word, like his Monaco rant. If Massa wanted to talk, leave it until behind closed doors and I think Martin Whitmarsh and Stefano Domenicalli need to speak to their drivers and thrash out their differences. There is no need for this rift; and it’s damaging the reputations of both drivers.
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| UNDERPERFORMING: Massa is not doing enough |
To conclude this issue, Massa needs to take a hard look at his own performances. Once again, he hasn’t delivered the results this season. True, he had an excellent start to the campaign and produced some solid races, especially in Malaysia, China and the Nurburgring. However, he hasn’t collected a podium finish now since Korea last October. That is an appalling stat for a Ferrari driver, even Eddie Irvine was a more trustworthy no.2 driver. No wins in three years, I have had my symphonies for the position that Massa is in on many occasions, but you can’t qualify and finish sixth every weekend and think its okay. It is probably best he moved onto another team, because his championship challenging days are only a distant memory. Every time I hear Rob Smedley on the radio, I sometimes think he is wasted as a race engineer and could be a decent driver. There is more chance of Ed Miliband ever becoming Prime Minister of this country than Felipe Massa has of winning another Grand Prix for Ferrari.
Other topics of interest over the Singapore weekend and the decline of Lotus Renault alarmingly continued last weekend. Vitaly Petrov, who has had a very impressive second season in the sport, finished 17th in the race, having been outraced fair and square by the Team Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen. Eliminated in Q1, Petrov must be wondering whether this is a nightmare. He was on the podium at the season opener in Australia and that must feel like last century, not six months ago! Eric Bouillier can’t use Nick Heidfeld now as his scapegoat anymore either. This car should be put in the scrapheap, it’s quite possibly the worst ever Renault that has ever been designed. How can you go from being the third strongest team in the opening two races, to fighting with the class B team’s five races before the season’s end? Robert Kubica’s impact on the team has been severely felt by his enforced absence this season and whilst I hope he regains full fitness, I sincerely hope Renault pull their finger out next season and actually give the drivers a car that they are capable of delivering the required results.
The three Formula One rookies in midfield teams this season all put in stirring efforts in Singapore. Once again, Pastor Maldonado narrowly missed out on points for Williams, but pulled off a classy overtake on his team-mate Rubens Barrichello in the dying laps. He has had his moments on insane behaviour this season and other events where he has been attempting to make alterations to the circuit design. However, he has performed credibly in a dismal car and in difficult circumstances. I actually do hope he gets another season at Williams to see just how good he really is. Whilst on the point of Williams’s drivers; Barrichello was laughing and so was I when I heard about the story of Kimi Raikkonen coming back to F1 next season as Rubens’s replacement. Get a fax message through to Sir Frank Williams; you are better off with Rubens, Kimi’s only going to turn up, drive the car and go home. He couldn’t give a flying monkey’s about all the technical development and although he might bring more points than what Rubens car, I can’t see where the team would go with Raikkonen onboard other than stagnated progress.
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| HOT: The humid conditions didn't affect di Resta, who scored his best finish |
Back to the rookies and Sergio Perez finished a solid tenth and earnt a deserved point for a weekend where he proved his street fighting capabilities. Perez’s season will be sadly remembered for that horrific qualifying crash in Monaco, but I think he has performed solidly throughout the season, despite the tendency to get into some unnecessary accidents. Sebastian Buemi can vouch for that. However, it is Paul di Resta who continues to take all the headlines in the rookie department. He drove like a man on a mission in Singapore and finished sixth; his best ever career result. Backed up by an eighth place result for Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil and the team now look odds-on to finish sixth in the constructors championship. As the year has gone on, Force India have made drastic improvements to their package, so credit to Vijay Mallya and the technical team back at Silverstone for finding the change in performance.
However, we must finish this edition of the Finishing Straight talking about Sebastian Vettel. Nine wins, eleven pole positions, countless fastest laps, immense ability on the first lap, dynamic overtaking, flawless pitstops, his driving at the moment is like poetry in motion. Once again, Vettel was my Driver of the Day and Driver of the Weekend in Singapore and don’t count on him not winning all the remaining races. He has destroyed the opposition in Japan, Korea and Abu Dhabi in previous years and will want to finish his dominant season in style. Michael Schumacher’s almost insurmountable tally of 13 wins from 18 in 2004 is looking incredibly vulnerable now, especially with this new German great in the pound seat now.
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