The Finishing Straight - Abu Dhabi (by HappyDude88)

THIS will be the final edition of ‘The Finishing Straight,’ as I will be doing a comprehensive review of the 2011 Formula One season after next week’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

        The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was a race that provided the fans with some much-needed overtaking, but questions have been raised about the DRS (Drag Reduction System) and its worth following Sunday’s race.  All of the passing on Sunday was done artificially and for the sport, it isn’t a good thing.  On that sense, I would agree with Jacques Villeneuve and Eddie Irvine when they have already admitted how bored they’ve been with artificial passing this season.  However, what choice do you have on a circuit which is one of the dreariest on the current calendar?  I’d rather watch a procession around Imola than another event in Abu Dhabi.  The facilities are top class and probably the best in the business but the track is very second-rate.  Once again, Hermann Tilke’s race circuits let the audience down and configuration changes will be required to ever make a classic Grand Prix here.  We have to put up with Valencia every season being a snooze fest and no-one wants to see another example again.  It is shame to give the circuit the thumbs down, especially when you think of the spectacular twilight setting in Abu Dhabi.

SPECIAL: Setting is brilliant, but the racetrack is not great

        I’ve been a fan of DRS this season and it has at least made overtaking more possible on a number of circuits.  It has been a case of trial and error this season, which was always expected in its debut campaign.  We saw the device being used far too easily in Istanbul and Spa, yet it was still difficult to overtake in Melbourne, Barcelona and Monza.  DRS is part of F1’s bright future and I wouldn’t scrap it, but we need to make it the right spectacle for the fans and give the drivers a chance to defend their position without feeling the need to give it up without a fight.  Abu Dhabi was okay last weekend, because at least the artificial element meant it wasn’t a follow-the-leader event, but for the sport, we can’t have many races like this otherwise the predictability effect creeps in again.

        It has been well documented that Lewis Hamilton has had a tough 2011 season, both on and off the track.  However, Abu Dhabi showed signs that he was coming back to his best.  In India, he looked distracted all weekend as the speculation over his doomed romance with Nicole Scherzinger took centre stage.  The performance he gave on Sunday reminded us of why Lewis is world class and still on his day, one of the best drivers in the business.  Despite his rough times, he still has at least matched Jenson Button’s win tally of three for the season and Mark Webber’s fourth place in the drivers’ championship now looks vulnerable, with Hamilton just six points behind.  It is often said that bouncing back quickly from disappointment is one of the strongest points in an individual.  Hamilton has done that and in commanding fashion and I truly hope that he can use his success on Sunday as a real stepping stone to a better 2012 campaign.

LIMPING: Vettel tours home after his sudden tyre failure

       For once, Sebastian Vettel got a dose of bad luck at the weekend.  A sudden puncture on the second corner of the race ended his hopes of matching Michael Schumacher’s record for wins in a season.  By his incredibly high standards, Sebastian had a very scrappy weekend.  He crashed on Friday and looked unhappy with the car throughout practice.  As expected, he produced the perfect lap to earn another pole position in qualifying, but I never believed he would win on Sunday, especially when you consider how invincible he has been at Silverstone and Suzuka in the past and been beaten fair and square this season.  The cause of the puncture doesn’t look like it will be revealed, although my theory is low tyre pressure.  I’m only saying this, as Red Bull had significant problems with tyres in the early stages of the Belgian Grand Prix, with tyres close to structural failure too.  At least he saved his bad luck for when both championships had been sewn up.

        Race stewards have returned to their bad 2008 ways this season.  Why did Bruno Senna get a drive-through penalty for ignoring blue flags?  I never saw any evidence of this on the worldwide feed.  Perhaps he did, but if the evidence doesn’t come through our TV screens, no wonders why the normal fan would have a quizzical look on their faces.  Senna’s penalty seems harsh but the stewards didn’t come down hard enough on Pastor Maldonado.  Maldonado picked up a similar penalty and it was deserved, only for the clueless Venezuelan to then battle Jaime Alguesuari when the leaders were lapping the pair.  Not only that, he blocked Mark Webber and when Webber rightfully showed his displeasure, Maldonado was stupid enough to run side-by-side with the Red Bull in an episode almost as distasteful as his attempt to drive Hamilton into the wall during Belgian GP qualifying.  Generally, he has done well in a rubbish motorcar and has put Rubens Barrichello in the shade more often than not, but Maldonado has more lapses than anyone on the grid.  He needs to sort himself out; otherwise it could lead to a more dangerous occurrence in the future.  I’m sorry but his behaviour at the weekend deserved a black flag, get out of the car you naughty boy and head for the airport with your head held in shame.  A 25-second penalty added to his race time is a peanuts penalty.  Jean Todt has done so well in his FIA role, but giving the stewards more option to penalise those regular offenders with black flags and race bans has to be a priority for future.  It is the only way to teach lessons into some of these drivers.

         Vitaly Petrov was the hero of the Red Bull pits last year, when his valiant defence of Fernando Alonso denied the Spaniard the world championship.  This season started so well for the Russian, with a wonderful podium finish in Australia but his campaign has gone downhill rapidly since.  In Abu Dhabi, he toured home in a distant 13^th and then launched a sensational outburst at his Renault team on Russian television, criticising them for a severe lack of development and dismal race strategies which have left him and his team-mate Bruno Senna, fighting too many losing battles.  Petrov has since apologised to the staff and Eric Bouillier has drawn a line under the matter, but he needs to control his drivers.  I understand Vitaly’s frustrations, but having a quiet word with Bouillier would have been better.  Speaking to the media like that doesn’t do any favours and it could throw his future with the team into doubt.  GP2 champion Romain Grosjean looked very competitive in Friday practice, Senna has kept him honest and of course, there’s the Robert Kubica factor.  Renault has more drivers than a job agency and errors in judgement like this from Petrov will not help his future prospects.  Wonder what Bouillier would have done if Nick Heidfeld had said this?  Sacked him would be the answer, oh wait, he did that earlier in the season. 

MOVING: Daniel Ricciardo continues to outperform Liuzzi

       The form of Daniel Ricciardo at the underfunded Hispania racing team has not gone unnoticed.  He is now outperforming Vitantonio Liuzzi on a regular basis and now it looks like he will be rewarded with a Toro Rosso drive next season.  This was a smart move by Dietrich Materschitz to place one of his promising youngsters in a new team to help develop his maturity and experience.  This news though means that Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguesuari might now be fighting for one seat in that team, which would be a tough break for both.  Buemi retired at the weekend with hydraulic problems.  It is his third retirement in the last four events, but all have been mechanical reasons and have cost the Swiss driver points in all of them.  Both Buemi and Alguesuari deserve another go at Toro Rosso next season, but it looks like one will be the unlucky loser and I fear for Buemi’s career, as he has been at the team longer and is older than his Spanish team-mate.  Formula One is a tough business and that is about to be proven again.  If Rubens Barrichello remarkably ends up staying on at Williams, both Adrian Sutil and Buemi, two very talented and solid Grand Prix drivers could be left in the wilderness.  It will be a tougher break for Sutil, considering he is staring at a top ten finish in the drivers’ championship, has outqualified Paul di Resta five times in seven races and picked up 60 per cent of Force India’s points.  Throw in Nico Hulkenberg into the mix, plus Grosjean, Senna and the possibility of Kimi Raikkonen returning to the F1 paddock and there will be some very disappointed and frustrated racers who won’t be on the grid come Melbourne next March.

         Driver of the day in Abu Dhabi was Fernando Alonso.  Hamilton may have won and is Driver of the Weekend, but Alonso’s performance on Sunday was sensational.  On Friday, the Ferrari was struggling to stay in a straight-line, let alone get around corners!  So, once again, Alonso surprised no-one, expect maybe himself with a gritty, fighting challenge to Hamilton and McLaren’s package superiority.  In that sense, it is a shame Vettel did retire, because it did deprive us of a classic three way scrap for the victory.  Perhaps Brazil will give us that chance next weekend.

The Finishing Straight - India (by HappyDude88)

IT WAS a brand new adventure for Formula One last weekend, as we entered a new country.  India hosted an event for the first time, but sadly produced a lacklustre debut race as far as on-track action goes.  The winner was Sebastian Vettel, but I’ve already done a special blog on the talents of this incredible German.  So, this week’s edition of ‘The Finishing Straight,’ will focus on the efforts of the midfield teams in India and how their performances have shaped up in comparison to the past and the future.

     Before I do that though, I need to digest and give my viewpoint on the latest clash between Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa.  The incident between the pair on Sunday was the sixth clash they have had over a race weekend this season.  On this occasion, the race stewards decided to blame Massa and give him a drive-through penalty for causing a collision.  Most of the contact this season has been triggered by mistakes or rash attempts at passing from a rather crestfallen Hamilton.  However, this time, I had to agree with the stewards and that Felipe was in the wrong here.  Lewis was down the inside line and had no more space to avoid the accident.  He was even backing out of a legitimate manoeuvre before the corner, realising that he wasn’t going to get the space that he rightfully should have been allowed.  From one of the televised replays, Massa was seen to be looking across to see where his enemy was on at least three occasions, possibly more, before deciding to turn in.  That for me is not on.  Although he was to blame, I do think a drive-through penalty was harsh, because it wasn’t like he got away scot-free.  He picked up superficial damage and ultimately, the Brazilian’s race ended when he decided to stupidly have another go at cutting the Indian plastering kerbs which had wrecked his suspension in qualifying.  The stewards have been far too insistent this year on dishing out penalties.  Whatever happened to the traditional ‘racing incident?’  In fact, out of the Hamilton/Massa altercations this year, only one out of the six deserved its sanction (Hamilton’s terrible attempt at passing into the Loews hairpin in Monaco.)  I feel sympathy for Massa on getting the penalty, but little else on another poor weekend for the Ferrari no.2.

      Okay, time to analyse some of the midfield performers and let’s start with the positives.  The form of Jaime Alguesuari in the second half of the season has been a revelation and a joy to see.  He had another superb weekend in India and has taken the Toro Rosso team forward.  He is outqualifying and outperforming Sebastian Buemi now on a regular basis.  The Toro Rosso looks like a missile in a straight-line at the moment and the radical improvements they brought to Japan have prompted a massive step forward.  I think they have been a real find this season and both drivers have impressed me this campaign. 

       The main Formula One rookies continue to shine as the season reaches its conclusion.  For the second time this season, Sergio Perez failed to pay attention to yellow flags in practice; picking up a three place grid penalty for not slowing down whilst marshals recovered Pastor Maldonado’s blown-up Williams on Friday.  Perez might need to check up the rules and regulations again over the winter, but the Mexican’s consistency continues to shine through.  The Sauber team have slipped down the pecking order in the second half of the season, as they have been simply out developed by the likes of Toro Rosso and Force India.  Yet Perez has kept the Swiss team right in the scrap for sixth place in the constructor’s championship.  I would even go as far to say that he is now Sauber No.1.

      Paul di Resta had a tough time in India, as for the first time since Nurburgring; he lagged behind Adrian Sutil all weekend.  However, the Scot’s weekend was made up with the news that he will be staying at Force India for 2012 and rightly so.  He has finished in the points on six occasions this campaign, outqualified his team-mate more often than not and firmly deserves to stay on.  The second seat remains a close battle between two Germans.  Sutil will hope to stay on if possible, but he has had five seasons with the team and might have to look elsewhere for options.  A seat at Williams is likely to be open, so he has some tough decisions to make.  It might be taken out of his hands if the Grove based team opt for Kimi Raikkonen to make a sensational return and if his current employers will put Nico Hulkenberg in the second car.  Hulkenberg has been a frustrated figure all season on the pitwall and told the BBC over the weekend that he won’t stay at the team if he isn’t racing for them next season.  Vijay Mallya has got a tough decision to make in the coming weeks.

     However, one driver who won’t have a decision to make on his future is Rubens Barrichello.  Sadly, the Brazilian’s career is whimpering towards a dreary conclusion, a real shame for a popular guy who has finished second in the driver’s championship on three separate occasions.  His 2011 campaign reached a new low, when he hit the back of team-mate Maldonado on the first lap in India and limped back with damage.  He finished behind Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus.  With Williams looking serious at Raikkonen and considering Sutil as an option, Rubens’s days in the sport look numbered.  At least he will be able to finish on home soil in Brazil in a month’s time.  Another driver who isn’t delivering at the moment is Kamur Kobayashi.  The Japanese driver has been outpaced by rookie team-mate Perez throughout the second half of the season and has only scored two points since the crazy Canadian Grand Prix back in June.  His Indian experience only lasted a lap, collecting damage in the incident with Barrichello and Virgin’s Timo Glock.  In fact, Kobayashi looks like he walked under an avalanche and out the other side came a twin who is half the driver he was in the opening stages of the season.  It was the same in 2010, when Sauber had a dismal car at the start of the campaign; Kamur struggled but radically improved when the car made strides forward.  I hope he can and will turn the corner in future.

       Final word goes to India, who did provide a wonderful spectacle.  The racing may have been disappointing, but the welcome F1 got was absolutely brilliant and the track is one of the best ever designed by Hermann Tilke.  After the disasters of Abu Dhabi and Valencia in the past, it is about time he got one which all the drivers seemed to like.  Hopefully the racing will be a bit more spectacular in India in 2012.

Sebastian Vettel - A legend in the making

# a special blog on the new double world champion replaced my regular Finishing Straight blog on the Korean Grand Prix.

THE word greatness is often used far too much in sport.  So too is the word, legend.  In the world of Formula One, you can only be considered a true great in the sport if you win the world championship twice.  Winning the title back-to-back is even harder to achieve, especially when you think of the current Formula One field.  The paddock may have been deprived of Robert Kubica this year by his pre-season rally accident, but this current crop of F1 drivers is probably the best in-depth we have had for over 30 years.  Multiple winners Rubens Barrichello, Mark Webber and Felipe Massa, combined with superb British champions Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button and former conquerors of Grand Prix racing, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.  So, this makes Sebastian Vettel’s record-breaking achievements in 2011 all the more special.  He truly is a legend in the making.

       Vettel’s F1 career has been full of highs and he made a name for himself from day one in an F1 cockpit.  He set the fastest practice time in Turkey 2006; his first appearance on a Grand Prix weekend as a third driver for BMW Sauber.  When Kubica was ruled out of the 2007 US GP following his aeroplane-like crash in Canada, Vettel stood in for the Pole.  He became the youngest driver to score a world championship point, coming home eighth.  BMW were keen to hold on to this starring talent, but Sebastian was part of the Red Bull young drivers programme and he ended up in a Toro Rosso later in the season, replacing Scott Speed from the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards.  A few races later, he starred in Japan, running a stunning third in the wet at Fuji Speedway before crashing into the back of Mark Webber’s Red Bull behind the Safety Car.  The youngster was devastated and had be consoled by his team for the embarrassing crash, but he bounced back in stunning style to record an outstanding fourth place finish just seven days later in Shanghai.

       Paired with Sebastian Bourdais for the 2008 season, Vettel struggled in the early races to repeat his form from the beginning of 2007.  Unbelievably, he was involved in three first lap accidents which took him out on the first lap in three of the first four races (Australia, Bahrain and Spain).  Once Toro Rosso produced a new car, he started to show his true class, in a car which frankly, would have been doing well to beat Honda and Williams.  Sebastian began a string of points scoring finishes from Hockenheim onwards, but it was Monza 2008 that really made him into a real star of the future.

      On a weekend where the championship challengers struggled in unseasonably wet conditions, Vettel came to the fore.  He delivered an impeccable performance on Saturday to become the youngest driver ever to earn a Formula One pole position.  24 hours later, he drove away from the faster McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen with consummate ease.  He won the race at a canter, to become the youngest driver to ever win a Grand Prix.  It was one of the finest drives I’d ever seen in Formula One and many in the Monza paddock that weekend had the same opinion.  Further point’s finishes in Singapore, Japan and Brazil earnt Sebastian eighth place in the championship final positions, whilst Toro Rosso ended up ahead of senior team, Red Bull in the constructors championship. 

     With David Coulthard going into retirement, Vettel was the perfect fit for the senior Red Bull squad, moving to the team for 2009.  In China, he overcame reliability problems in qualifying to take the team’s first pole position.  On raceday, foul weather conditions greeted the drivers and teams, but once again, Sebastian’s control at the front was total.  He showed his true class to record Red Bull’s first ever race victory.  It was a 1-2 for the team too, with Webber following his new team-mate home.  He also won from the front at Silverstone, Suzuka and Abu Dhabi to finish an excellent second in the drivers’ championship, only being knocked out of the championship running by a poor Q1 in Brazil which saw him drop out of contention.  He did make mistakes, such as colliding with Kubica in Australia and crashing at Monte Carlo, but the potential of this new German was really coming through.

      2010 started frustratingly for the Vettel/Red Bull partnership, thanks to reliability problems.  A broken exhaust saw Vettel limp home to fourth in Bahrain and a loose wheel nut sent him spinning out of the lead in Melbourne.  He won in Malaysia, but struggled with the Red Bull chassis and started to come under pressure in the team from team-mate Webber.  It triggered an extraordinary collision between the team-mates in Turkey.  He also drove into Jenson Button’s sidepod at Spa, labelled after that race by McLaren managing director Martin Whitmarsh as “the crash kid.”  However, he came back with fourth at Monza and crushing victories in Japan and Brazil to leave him with a chance of the championship going into the final event in Abu Dhabi.  It was a four-way title shootout and Sebastian drove like a champion all weekend.  He started on pole and won the race.  With an early Safety Car period allowing the likes of Nico Rosberg and Vitaly Petrov to leapfrog Fernando Alonso and Webber, it was enough for Sebastian Vettel to be crowned the 2010 FIA Formula One World Champion; the youngest in the 60 year history of the championship.

      This season, he has been in a class of his own.  The signs were ominous with dominant victories in the first two races in Australia and Malaysia.  A risky tyre strategy nearly paid off in Shanghai, but this time, he had to settle for second behind a hard-charging Hamilton.  After a heavy crash in Turkey practice which ruled him out of any dry running on Friday, he returned to Istanbul Park 24 hours later to take pole position by nearly half a second.  Race victory was a formality.  Vettel’s best two wins of the season came in Spain and Monaco, when his package was not the fastest on raceday.  In the latter, he held off the stiff challenges of Jenson Button and Alonso, having been on a worn set of Pirelli tyres for nearly 60 laps.  Canada brought a rare chink in the armour, running wide on the last lap to allow Button in for a gigantic victory.  He stormed to victory in Valencia and when he couldn’t win, Sebastian would consistently finish second, as he did at Silverstone and in Hungary.  In between this was a torrid home event at the Nurburgring, where he was second best to team-mate Webber all weekend and had to settle for fourth; the only event in 2011 when he hasn’t finished on the rostrum.  After a run of races without a win during the summer, he recovered to win at Spa, Monza and Singapore, again leading all three from the front.  A cautious third place at Suzuka by his own high standards was good enough to secure his second world championship and success last time out in Korea means he can still match Michael Schumacher’s record of 13 wins in a season, set in 2004.

       In qualifying, he has the natural ability of Senna to set a lap when it is required.  He has shown he can overtake to win races like in Barcelona on Massa and Button and Alonso in Belgium.  When he gets infront, he seems to be able to coast to victory without any trouble.  With 100 per cent reliability and a sensational pitcrew around him, it’s no wonder why he has been the one to beat in 2011. 

      What Sebastian Vettel has achieved not just this season, but in his entire Formula One career is truly remarkable.  We shouldn’t be moaning at the domination of one driver at the front, we should be hailing and witnessing one of the true legends of this great sport show their genuine class.  The Vettel dynasty in Grand Prix racing has only just begun; it looks like Schumacher’s records could be beaten after all.

The Finishing Straight - Japan (by HappyDude88)

SO, IT is now all officially over.  Sebastian Vettel is world champion and becomes only the ninth driver in history to become a back-to-back title winner.  It’s a prestigious list he joins, with the likes of Fangio, Schumacher, Senna, Prost and Alonso among those to have achieved an incredible feat.  The emotion on his face when the BBC played back the wonderful montage of back-to-back champions was genuine and he is such a nice bloke too.  Sometimes in Formula One, you have to appreciate greatness rather than moan about domination.  Vettel totally deserves the title this season; he has been in a class of his own.  I will be doing a special blog about the back-to-back champion at a later date.

      However, Sebastian had to share the honours on Sunday with Jenson Button, who drove flawlessly again to record his first dry win in a McLaren.  His win was another example of stunning driving and he has totally proved those critics, including myself, who said he made a severe error of judgement in leaving Brawn GP for McLaren in 2009.  Button is now the defunct no.1 at McLaren and I hope he hangs onto second place in the championship.  Again, this win means a lot for Button – with his Japanese girlfriend, Jessica at his side, plus the seven seasons he spent driving for BAR/Honda.  He has a close affinity with Japan and is effectively a second home race.  Jenson is driving out of his skin at the moment and has the ability now to go on and potentially win a second championship.

     The talking point of the race was Vettel’s move on Button at the start of the race.  Having been pipped by 0.009secs in qualifying, Button was keen to get the lead from the start.  He made a slightly better start, but Sebastian gradually squeezed him out of space.  He left Button with a rather brutal choice; back off or risk a crash and sensibly, Jenson chose the former.  However, I’ve seen far worse moves at the start of the race and gone unpunished.  It deserved a closer look with the race stewards, but no more action was taken thankfully.  At last, a decision I agree with this season from the stewards, who sadly have gone back to the inconsistency of 2008.

     As Button continues to blossom, Lewis Hamilton continues to look like a lonely, depressed soul and he has a lot of soul-searching to do over the winter.  Whilst his team-mate has finished on the rostrum in the last five races, Hamilton has managed just four rostrums in 15 races; a sobering statistic for a driver of the highest calibre.  He finished an uneventful fifth at Suzuka and his race also included another run-in with Felipe Massa, AGAIN!  This time, it was a minor clash, which saw Massa come off worse on this occasion.  This time, Felipe attempted to make the most of it and Hamilton is completely blameless.  However, I do find it hard to believe him complaining about vision in his mirrors being impaired.  Come on Lewis, this isn’t the third race of the season, it’s the 15^th.  It is an issue that should have been dealt with by Shanghai at the latest, not at this late stage of the campaign.  These are the sort of issues that Sam Michael will need to address with his arrival next season.

     Having only scored four points in the last six races, Renault arrived in Japan under some sustained pressure from an ever-improving Force India outfit.  Vitaly Petrov stemmed their charge, with a fighting performance to ninth in Japan.  Bruno Senna wasn’t helped when he clipped Petrov in a scramble on the exit of turn two during the first lap.  With plenty of front downforce missing, his race was severely compromised.  It was interesting to see GP2 champion Romain Grosjean sitting on the pitwall, looking like a spare part.  Senna has done a good job in the four races he has competed so far for Renault, but Grosjean deserves a shot before the season’s conclusion, especially as there are continuing doubts about Robert Kubica’s pending return.  Renault’s strategy on tyres was dreadful; so it made Petrov’s drive even more impressive.  Fifth place now looks as good as secure for the team, who will want significant improvements next season.

     Force India now has some fresh investment in the team, from a major Indian company.  The future looks very rosy now for the Silverstone based outfit, but they will have to be disappointed with their Suzuka showing.  Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta both missed out on points, finishing 11^th and 12^th respectively.  Sutil produced the move of the race; on Sauber’s Kamur Kobayashi, which showed a lot of courage and bravery in 130R.  However, they struggled with tyre troubles like Renault and the timing of an unnecessary Safety Car severely hurt their hopes of a double points finishes.  Paul di Resta’s performance was quite admirable, considering as he looked awful all weekend, suffering from a flu bug.

     Also suffering from being under weather was Sergio Perez.  The Mexican looked incredibly pale when speaking to BBC’s David Coulthard on Saturday morning, he might have keeled over.  His non-show in Q2 gave me the thought that he might not participate in the race.  However, the Mexican surprised me, his team and probably himself with a fighting drive to eighth place, his first points since the seventh place result he achieved at Silverstone back in July.  His four points move Sauber, who’ve had a rocky mid-season, back onto Force India’s coattails.  Although Perez’s form has fluctuated over the course of the season, especially since that Monaco crash in May, he has produced enough to hint that he is Ferrari material in the long-term.  Kamur Kobayashi had a poor race and finished down in 13^th place, but qualified well and was supported stoutly by his home crowd.  Kobayashi has done so much to promote his country in the wake of the dreadful tsunami to have hit the country earlier this year and it was a shame he couldn’t bring his car home for points on Sunday.

     Having predicted that Toro Rosso might finish sixth in the constructors championship two races ago, it looks like I put a dark curse on the team.  They have failed to perform in the last two events and now look unlikely to improve on eighth in the championship.  Their cause will not be helped by their mechanics failing to tighten up their wheels in pitstops.  Jaime Alguesuari suffered in China from this and the same fates befall Sebastian Buemi at the weekend.  Had he not had this issue, Buemi might have been right in the mix for points when the chequered flag came out after 53 gruelling laps.    

      There is no doubt who was Driver of the Weekend and that was Jenson Button.  Fastest in every single session over the weekend, except the crucial Q3 session, he looked like he had a mission to accomplish over the three days in Suzuka and he achieved in with consummate ease.  However, Sergio Perez is my surprise nomination for Driver of the Day.  Considering that he looked barely 50 per cent fit, his performance on such a physical driver’s circuit such as Suzuka was very impressive.

      Although the constructor’s championship isn’t quite wrapped up, we can now go racing for fun in the final four races of the season.  Hopefully, F1 2011 can finish on a high and there are still plenty of questions to be asked.  Can Lewis Hamilton recapture his form?  Will Mercedes GP score a podium by the season’s end?  Has Mark Webber got the luck to win a Grand Prix this season?  However, we must salute Sebastian Vettel, a true modern racing legend.

The Finishing Straight - Italy (by HappyDude88)

BEFORE I round-up the weekend’s events at the final European race of the season, I want to apologise for not producing any blogs of ‘The Finishing Straight,’ for the Hungarian and Belgian rounds of the 2011 FIA Formula One World championship.  I had a busy time in my own life and never found the required time to sum up my weekend’s feelings.  However, I’m back now with this kind of blog for the remainder of the 2011 season, although the competition for the title is now well and truly over.

     The hopeful purists were praying that Spa and Monza would show the weaknesses of the Red Bull Racing Renault package.  It didn’t, it just enhanced itself as one of the best ever cars to have graced Formula One.  In Sebastian Vettel, not only are we witnessing domination of the Schumacher Ferrari days (2001, 2002, 2004 spring to mind,) we are witnessing one of the ultimate legends in the sport.  There will always be comparisons with the likes of Senna, Prost, Fangio and Schumacher in his peak and it’s difficult to judge where you rank Vettel in the various categories.  However, he is the ultimate driver now and has been the class of the field for over a year now.  Anyone who says that he doesn’t deserve his second world championship needs to go and see a brain surgeon before it’s too late!  His win at Monza was so easy; it looked like he hadn’t broken a sweat in achieving it.  He had to make a crucial pass in the race to earn his win and the bravery he showed when Fernando Alonso stuck him on the grass like an animal on lap five was amazing.  Against Alonso, many would have backed off in this situation, but Vettel didn’t and reaped his rewards with the decisive overtake in this race.  Time and again, he has been criticised for his lack of racecraft, but he has pulled off race-winning passes on Felipe Massa in Malaysia, Jenson Button in Barcelona and Alonso again in Belgium, so there’s nothing wrong in this department.  In fact, Sebastian Vettel is for me, one of the top ten drivers to have ever sat in a racing car.  It couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke either.  Schumacher’s records could now be under severe threat when you consider Vettel’s age – maybe HMV should approach the champion-to-be for a job in a desperate boost to improve its failing record sales!

     While Vettel is coasting to the title, fellow compatriot Schumacher is starting to roll back the years, which I’m pleased to see.  He drove superbly to fifth from 24^th on the grid in Spa and repeated the result at Monza, with his strongest outing of the season.  The Mercedes GP chassis, which frankly has been a real letdown this season, looked much better in Italy and Schumacher comfortably had the measure of Nico Rosberg.  Some fantastic positioning combined with a few borderline movement directions saw MS keep a rather cautious Lewis Hamilton at bay for almost half the race.  Was Michael playing with the rules and regulations in his defending?  Well, the race stewards felt no action was required, despite a couple of irritable messages from Mercedes GP boss Ross Brawn on the team radio.  I felt he was pushing his luck a bit, but Michael Schumacher has always done that.  That’s why he’s clever, cunning and a seven-time world champion.  You don’t achieve his feats by accident.  It’s nice to compliment Schumacher, rather than slam him for shocking events he has had in his comeback.  The nightmare of his Istanbul performance in May seems like a long time ago.

DESTROYED: Petrov, Rosberg and Barrichello were innocent victims

      Whilst Schumacher’s driving was legitimate, Vitantonio Liuzzi has some explaining to do, for causing mayhem in the first chicane.  Annoyed at being out-qualified by his team-mate, Daniel Ricciardo for the first time, he lost the plot completely and ruined many races.  He did make a great start, but with Liuzzi’s experience, he should know that you can’t win the race at the first corner.  He couldn’t control the car on the grass and yes, he did get an HRT into the top eight of a Grand Prix for the first time, but not in glorified fashion.  Vitaly Petrov’s fury as he got out of his destroyed Renault and Nico Rosberg’s comment of being ‘torpedoed’ said it all really.  Liuzzi took them out, ruined Rubens Barrichello’s race and scuppered the chances of points for Adrian Sutil and Kamur Kobayashi.  A five-place grid penalty for Singapore doesn’t do justice, especially as he will qualify last anyway.  Then, he has the cheek to blame Heikki Kovalainen for squeezing him on the grass!!  Nice try Tonio, but I think it’s time you find alternative motorsport employment before you destroy anyone else’s race chances.      

MOVING: Sam Michael will be in McLaren colours next season

     McLaren’s decision to appoint the outgoing Williams technical director Sam Michael, as sporting manager is a shrewd decision.  Michael, responsible for Williams best recent period, (2001-03) under Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher will bring some much-needed stability to the team that has been all too evident in missing this season.  Jenson Button is having his best season for a long while, even better than his 2009 championship winning campaign.  Michael will work closely with Hamilton too, which should be a good thing for Lewis, after what has been an erratic season to say the least for Hamilton.  If he can get results out of the likes of Montoya and Schumacher Jnr, who let’s be honest, were mediocre drivers, then I think McLaren are onto a real winner with this appointment.  At least the second and fourth places finishes at Monza all but guaranteed second place in the constructors’ championship for McLaren again.  However, in the words of Ron Dennis; ‘second is the first of the losers.’

      One team that has got their act together as the season has gone on is Scuderia Toro Rosso.  The upgrades they keep bringing have moved them right into the hunt for points on a regular basis.  Jaime Alguesuari’s stunning second-half of the season continues, with a career-best seventh place finish, despite being knocked out in the first part of qualifying.  Despite getting hit in the first corner, Sebastian Buemi was a solid tenth.  Six points finishes for Buemi and five for Alguesuari is really good going and they have closed right onto the tails of the Sauber/Force India squabble for sixth place in the constructors’ championship.  This is a battle I’m looking forward to in the final six flyaway races and I’ve got a feeling that Toro Rosso might sneak the position.  When Paul di Resta has a good weekend, Adrian Sutil doesn’t and vice versa, which is hurting Force India’s potential for double points finishes.  Sauber can’t seem to qualify very well and with Sergio Perez making a few too many mistakes, plus reliable Kamur Kobayashi going off the boil, I think it is Toro Rosso’s position for the taking.

     One team that won’t be featuring in this scrap is Williams.  Just five points all season is a dismal return for a team with such established pedigree in Formula One.  On a day when points were up for grabs, Pastor Maldonado and Rubens Barrichello missed out, in 11^th and 12^th place.  Ninth place will be the worst finish for the team since Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head came together to form Williams Engineering in 1978.  Maldonado has shown on his day that he is worthy of a place in the sport, but other times, drives like a total hooligan (Belgium qualifying incident with Hamilton in thought here!).  I’m afraid Rubens Barrichello is struggling and looks like a sorry figure in the paddock nowadays.  I don’t quite know what is keeping Rubens around because he doesn’t seem to be enjoying his racing anymore, despite his claims he is.  I’ve been very supportive of Barrichello’s career, particularly in the no.2 job he had to play at Ferrari, but his painful campaign is having echoes of Damon Hill’s pitiful final season in the sport in 1999.  Maybe it is time for Rubens to move aside and give youth a chance.  Romain Grosjean has won the GP2 Championship, is basically owned by Renault and unless Robert Kubica doesn’t return, will be frozen out.  Bruno Senna, Adrian Sutil, even a shock Nico Hulkenberg return have also been mentioned with Williams.  What would be their strongest team?  Probably Sutil/Senna would be good, but Maldonado/Grosjean is more likely, largely because of the millions that Pastor is bringing to the drive for sponsorship.  While I’m talking high sponsorship levels, I wonder what happened to ex-Forti, Sauber and Arrows driver Pedro Diniz.  Answers on a postcard please!

     Finally, there is no doubt who was the driver of the day and the driver of the weekend at Monza.  Solid mentions have to be given out to Bruno Senna, Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button, but Sebastian Vettel was once again, supreme and in a class of one.

IMPERIOUS: Singapore would be ideal for Vettel's title

     So, six flyaway races remain in 2011.  The night spectacular in Singapore begins the long haul next weekend, followed by the classic Suzuka circuit in Japan.  A second visit to Korea beckons, before a new adventure for the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in New Delhi.  The twilight of Abu Dhabi stages the penultimate event, before we wrap up four weeks before Xmas in Brazil on November 27.

It’s no longer a question of if, but when the sensational Mr. Vettel wraps it all up and the setting of night racing in Singapore would be a fitting way to clinch it. 

F1 classic races - Italy

IN A new series, I will be looking back at six classic races every weekend from the country about to stage an event in the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship.  This is my selection, of races from the Italian Grand Prix between 1991 and 2010.  Enjoy the archive!

1993

SOMERSAULT: Fittipaldi hits his team-mate in 1993 and sees sky

WINNER: Damon Hill (Williams Renault), 2^nd: Jean Alesi (Ferrari), 3^rd: Michael Andretti (McLaren Ford)

DAMON Hill received a degree of fortune, which was long overdue at Monza in 1993.  After a first lap clash with Ayrton Senna sent him tumbling down the order, the Brit fought back to second behind his team-mate Alain Prost.  All looked set for Prost to clinch his fourth world championship when his engine spectacularly blew up with just four laps to go, handing Hill victory.  Jean Alesi brought some much needed smiles to Ferrari on home ground, with an excellent second position, whilst Michael Andretti ended his failed F1 experiment and returned to IndyCars after this race.  However, the American did record a podium finish.  Right at the end, Christian Fittipaldi clipped his Minardi team-mate Pierluigi Martini and somersaulted across the line.  Luckily, Fittipaldi finished on three wheels and lived to tell the tale.

1996

WINNER: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), 2^nd: Jean Alesi (Benetton Renault), 3^rd: Mika Hakkinen (McLaren Mercedes)

WILLIAMS’s drivers Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve dominated the championship in 1996, but both had off-days at Monza.  Hill was cruising to certain victory when he clipped the tyre stacks placed on the exit of the first chicane on the sixth lap.  With broken suspension, Hill had to play the role of devastated spectator for the rest of the afternoon.  Luckily for him, Villeneuve finished out of the points in seventh position.  The temporary tyres placed in the first two chicanes also claimed David Coulthard, Eddie Irvine and Heinz-Harald Frentzen and was widely criticised by drivers.  On his first drive at Monza for Ferrari, Michael Schumacher recovered from a slow start and survived a scrape with the tyre stacks to hunt down and pass Jean Alesi in the pitstops and record a popular victory, his second in a row.  Mika Hakkinen recovered from damaging his front wing early on against THOSE tyre stacks to finish a remarkable third, having been as low as 18^th after his unscheduled stop.

1998

WINNER: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), 2^nd: Eddie Irvine (Ferrari), 3^rd: Ralf Schumacher (Jordan Mugen Honda)

FERRARI threw the 1998 title race wide open after this sensational race in 1998.  Michael Schumacher took his first pole position of the season, but made a terrible start and dropped to fifth.  Mika Hakkinen had a great start and took the lead, before letting lighter fuelled team-mate David Coulthard past him.  On lap 14, Coulthard’s engine blew up entering the second chicane.  Hakkinen was wrong-footed through the smoke, and this allowed Schumacher to take a quicker exit from the chicane and snatch the lead.  Hakkinen chased hard, but had problems with the traffic, notably from Giancarlo Fisichella’s dithering Benetton.  Then, with ten laps to go, his brakes exploded into the second chicane, sending the Finn backwards across the gravel trap at high speed.  Amazingly, he didn’t hit anything, kept his composure and rejoined.  However, his lack of braking capacity meant both Eddie Irvine and Ralf Schumacher were able to cruise past the ailing McLaren.  Schumacher won, with Hakkinen having to settle for fourth.  With two races left in this fantastic season, Schumacher and Hakkinen were now locked together on 80 points each.

2000

WINNER: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), 2^nd: Mika Hakkinen (McLaren Mercedes), 3^rd: Ralf Schumacher (Williams BMW)

MICHAEL Schumacher famously broke down in the post-race press conference after winning for the first time since June, equalling Ayrton Senna’s tally of 41 Grand Prix victories.  The success brought him to within two points of leader Mika Hakkinen in the title race.  Hakkinen drove a cautious race to second, whilst Ralf Schumacher held off serious challenges from BAR’s Ricardo Zonta and Jos Verstappen’s Arrows for the final podium spot.  Both Zonta and Verstappen benefited from lighter fuel strategies and misfortune for others.  Jacques Villeneuve looked good for a podium, before engine failure struck his BAR, whilst a slipping clutch lost a lap in the pits for Giancarlo Fisichella.  However, tragedy was the over-riding of the race.  On the first lap, an incident triggered by Heinz-Harald Frentzen caused mayhem.  Frentzen, Rubens Barrichello, Jarno Trulli, David Coulthard, Pedro de la Rosa and Johnny Herbert were eliminated in the second chicane and the flying debris from the crash tragically caused the fatality of 33-year old fire marshal Paulo Ghislimberti.  His death was the first at the racetrack since Ayrton Senna’s death at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

2004

WINNER: Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari), 2^nd: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), 3^rd: Jenson Button (BAR Honda)

FERRARI showed their dominant speed in a race that at least five drivers had the chance of winning.  In the end, Rubens Barrichello’s three-stop strategy prevailed, as he recorded his first win of the season.  This was despite the wrong choice of tyre at the start of the race, going for intermediates on a drying track.  Michael Schumacher spent much of the day fighting up the order, after spinning on dry tyres at the second chicane on the opening lap.  He set lap record after lap record on his recovery drive to second place.  The race could have been won by Jenson Button, but his lack of speed in a straight-line meant he had to settle for a podium finish.  However, that result and fourth place from Takuma Sato was enough for BAR to take second place in the constructors championship from Renault.  Fernando Alonso led the opening stint and was also a winning challenger, but he spun off with 15 laps to go and stalled his engine.  Another contender, Kimi Raikkonen was forced out by engine trouble early on.  There was a lucky escape for Gianmaria Bruni and the Minardi pit crew after a refuelling fire.  Luckily, just Bruni suffered minor injury, as he inhaled some of the smoke from the fire. 

2008

WINNER: Sebastian Vettel (Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari), 2^nd: Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren Mercedes), 3^rd: Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber)

THE battle for the world championship in 2008 paled into insignificance at Monza by the incredible achievement of Sebastian Vettel and Scuderia Toro Rosso.  Toro Rosso, with Minardi DNA achieved their first Grand Prix victory and Vettel became the youngest driver ever to win a Grand Prix race.  The 21-year old’s stunning weekend began with pole position in a rain-soaked qualifying session on Saturday.  His team-mate Sebastian Bourdais started fourth, but a clutch problem left him stranded on the line and he lost a lap in the pits.  Vettel drove away from the field effortlessly, making Heikki Kovalainen’s superior McLaren look like an amateur.  It was one of the greatest drives seen in recent years.  A rueful Kovalainen had to settle for second, whilst Robert Kubica timed his sole pitstop perfectly with a switch to dry tyres.  It earnt him third spot, from a lowly 11^th on the grid.  Title contenders Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton had to settle for sixth and seventh, meaning there was now just one point between them, in Hamilton’s favour.  However, this was Vettel’s weekend.  

The Finishing Straight - Monaco (by HappyDude88)

THE Monaco Grand Prix provided plenty of talking points, recriminations and celebration.  This is my view of an action-packed weekend;

     Lewis Hamilton’s weekend in Monaco was an absolute disaster.  It ended with a ‘joke’ about his racial colour which was distasteful and disgraceful.  Having said last week in the Spanish blog that I had been impressed with Hamilton’s discipline throughout the season so far, Monaco was totally the opposite.  In qualifying, he had been flying.  He was fastest in Q1 and Q2 and had a golden chance of snatching pole position from the king of Saturday qualifying, Sebastian Vettel.  McLaren made a grave mistake by gambling on just the one run for Hamilton, and when the red flag came out for Sergio Perez’s big accident, their strategy had backfired.  Before this, Hamilton claimed he had been held up by Felipe Massa as he came out of the pits, which certainly seemed a bit far-fetched.  To compound matters, Lewis cut the chicane at the Swimming Pool and had his one qualifying time deleted.  He started out of position in ninth and then frankly drove like an amateur who had failed their driving test miserably on Sunday.  Granted, he pulled off a spectacular pass on Michael Schumacher early on, but his run-ins with Massa and Pastor Maldonado were daft.  

CLUMSY: Hamilton and Massa got into a banging match

     The lunge on Massa into the Loews hairpin, where it is impossible to overtake was clumsy to say the least.  The pair interlocked wheels and continued their race into the Monaco tunnel.  Hamilton forced his way through, which pushed the Ferrari onto the dirty marbles and left Felipe clattering into the barriers.  This bought out the Safety Car.  Lewis got a deserved drive-through penalty for causing the collision, and had the cheek to blame Massa on his team radio; “I went up the inside and he turned in on me.  That was on purpose!”  Well Lewis, if that was on purpose, then I shall eat my summer hat!!  If he wants lessons on purposely turning into corners, then ask Michael Schumacher, he’s a proven expert!

      His run-in with Maldonado was just as bad, and it cost the rookie his first championship points.  After the red flag interlude, for which Lewis should have been disqualified for driving around with a rear wing about to collapse for at least two laps, he dived up the inside and rammed into the Williams at Ste. Devote.  His claim was that Maldonado turned in early, but the replays will indicate that when Lewis made contact, he even used the pitlane exit, not the track!  Stick to the road and you might have a point. . .  He got a time penalty after the race, which did nothing to his finishing position, so it was pointless and it isn’t going to get back Maldonado’s points place.  Afterwards, he called the race stewards a “freckin joke,” blamed Massa and Maldonado, slagged his team off for a diabolical pitstop, then said this; “I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m black.  That’s what Ali G says!”  Martin Whitmarsh ordered his driver back to the race stewards to apologise and Hamilton was ensured that the matter would be resolved there and then.  On Tuesday, it was clear that Lewis had regretted his words and he apologised to his fans, Massa and Maldonado via his Twitter page; “To Massa and Maldonado, with the greatest respect, I apologise if I offended you.  Both of you are fantastic drivers who I regard highly.”

      For me, the incident should now be drawn underneath the line and we must move on.  However, Lewis Hamilton is a lucky lad to not face any further action from the FIA for his derogatory comments.  Whether it was a joke or not, it doesn’t matter, his comments have no place in today’s society and he is experienced enough now to know better.  I hope in Canada, I can talk more positively about Lewis Hamilton rather than all the negatives of this race.

      Away from Hamilton’s horror weekend, the 2011 Monaco Grand Prix was the worst for serious accidents in a single weekend since the 2001 Australian Grand Prix.  In Melbourne a decade ago, Michael Schumacher walked away from rolling his Ferrari in practice, Luciano Burti suffered a suspension failure in his Jaguar during qualifying, which ripped his car into bits and pieces and finally, there was the tragic collision between Ralf Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve in the race that led to the fatality of 52-year old trackside marshal Graham Beveridge.  In Monaco, it was the drivers who were more at risk.  

     First, Nico Rosberg crashed during Saturday morning practice, when his Mercedes got unsettled under braking for the Nouvelle chicane.  Rosberg only narrowly missed the tyre barriers head-on by millimetres.  After this scary incident, race director Charlie Whiting insisted that the speed humps in the chicane be removed for qualifying.  It was this action, plus the strength of today’s Grand Prix cars that saved Sergio Perez’s life in qualifying.  

WRECKAGE: Only minor injuries for Sergio Perez after this shunt

      The Mexican rookie had done a brilliant job to reach the final part of qualifying, when he got off-line in the tunnel.  On the notorious bumps, his Sauber went the same way as Rosberg, but the side impact with the wall did its job, even though it was terrifying.  The lack of flailing movement from Perez inside the cockpit just added to the distress for his father and the Sauber team inside the pit garage.  It was a crash that bought echoes about Karl Wendlinger’s shocking shunt at the same place in 1994.  The Austrian went into a deep coma when he crashed his Sauber car in almost the same way as Perez did just a fortnight after the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger.  Perez was ruled out of the race by concussion and a thigh injury, but he was released from the Princess Grace Hospital on Monday morning, following two nights in hospital for observational purposes.  He should be fit and raring to go for the next event in Canada next weekend. 

      24 hours later, and another driver was admitted to hospital in a far less significant impact, which could have been tragic.  Vitaly Petrov was released from the same clinic a day earlier than Perez, with minor concussion and bruising after a brush with the barriers which again worried many seasoned observers.  His crash came on lap 69, during a traffic jam, which nearly saw the three race leaders, Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button end up being caught up in the melee.  The incident began at Tabac, when Maldonado passed Adrian Sutil and the Force India driver grazed the wall, puncturing a tyre.  As Sutil limped around, Hamilton braked to avoid him and was whacked from behind by Jaime Alguesuari.  With the Toro Rosso using the McLaren as a launch pad, Petrov’s Renault was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Remarkably, Sebastian Buemi, Rosberg and the three leaders got through the wreckage undamaged.  Again, although he had removed his steering wheel, there was a lack of movement from Petrov inside the cockpit, with the Russian complaining of pain in his ankles.  Thankfully, there were no broken bones, but it was the last thing Formula One needed after Perez’s brush with life 24 hours earlier.  In fact, the sport has had three lucky escapes this weekend and it is time to make some radical safety improvements to the Monaco circuit.  The harsh will say that racing cars have just simply outgrown the streets.  Well, without Monaco on the calendar, there’d be no point of a F1 world championship.  Just some urgent track resurfacing and barrier movements should be needed to improve the safety levels around the Principality.  However, this weekend was definitely a wake-up call.

      One driver who must be feeling the pressure now is Jaime Alguesuari.  Whilst Sebastian Buemi collected another point for Toro Rosso, Alguesuari is on seriously borrowed time, especially with the highly-rated Daniel Ricciardo sitting in the wings of the Toro Rosso garage.  Alguesuari struggled all weekend and was knocked out in Q1.  Even worse, he was comprehensively outpaced by the two Lotus cars and spent the first half of the race behind Jarno Trulli.  His race-ending incident, against Hamilton’s McLaren, considering he was a lap down in the melee won’t have impressed anyone.  Franz Tost is known for sacking drivers in mid-season.  Both Scott Speed and Sebastian Bourdais have felt that in the past, and more performances like this and Alguesuari will join them in the ‘Unemployed’ category.  As much as I don’t like to see these things happen to racing drivers, Jaime needs to raise his game and quickly if he doesn’t want to get the boot.  One man who has received the boot is Nick Wirth.  Wirth was the technical director of the Virgin Racing team and another shambles in Monaco has led to his departure.  For the second year running, Timo Glock suffered a scary suspension failure, where he looked to be driving on three wheels.  The Virgin’s are the best part of five seconds slower than the frontrunners and are nowhere near the midfield in Formula One.  In fact, Hispania seem closer to them, than they do to Lotus.  Excuses run very thin in this business and Wirth has paid the price for the 2011 chassis, which is simply, a dreadful racing car.  Handling a Skoda might be a better job and I know from Glock’s body language, that his frustration is plain to see.  Having said that, rookie Jerome D’Ambrosio finished again and the Belgian is doing a creditable job, considering the resources he has at his disposal, which is certainly very limited.

TOP: Another classy weekend for Sebastian Vettel

      Finally, it is time to crown my Driver of the Weekend.  Despite good efforts from Pastor Maldonado and Jenson Button, it goes to the runaway championship leader Sebastian Vettel.  Vettel has never gone great around Monaco in the past, despite a fifth and a second place before.  His form over the weekend was once again immaculate.  His driving ability can’t be questioned and he did a wonderful job holding off Alonso and Button on far quicker tyres.  He turned Red Bull’s disastrous pitstops into a race-winning performance.  Of course, he received some well-judged fortune, through the late race suspension, which allowed everyone to change their tyres for the last five laps, but I think Alonso and Button would have struggled to get past anyway.  The champagne is on ice and Sebastian Vettel is walking away with the 2011 world championship.  Canada’s next; another weak Vettel circuit?  Well, considering his form in Barcelona and Monte Carlo, let’s make him the race favourite again then!

F1 2011 preview (Part 2)

THE new Formula One season begins this weekend, two weeks later than initially planned.  The Australian Grand Prix takes over the mantelpiece of the F1 opener, after Bahrain’s cancellation, following the current unrest in the Middle East.  With another big shake-up in the rules, another new race in India to look forward to and a rather stable driver market this time around, 2011 can beat the drama of 2010.  Can Sebastian Vettel defend his title?  Will Fernando Alonso bounce back from last year’s Abu Dhabi heartbreak?  How will Renault fare without Robert Kubica?  Is Michael Schumacher going to prove his critics wrong?  Have McLaren been sandbagging in testing?  All the talking stops this weekend in Albert Park, so here’s the inside guide.  

Force India Mercedes

14           Adrian Sutil (GER)

15           Paul di Resta (BRI)

As 2010 continued, Force India dropped down the pecking order and 2011 could turn into a very tough one for the Silverstone-based team.  The loss of key technical staff is James Key and Mark Smith has hit the team hard and testing form suggests that they could be looking backwards rather than forwards in the incoming campaign.  Adrian Sutil is a proven point’s scorer and ditched his accident-prone image last year to score some solid points results.  He will do well to match his best results of 5^th in Malaysia and Spa last season.  After four seasons in DTM, culminating in the 2010 championship, Scot Paul di Resta joins the grid.  He deserves his chance, and is bound to be more of a match for Sutil than Vitantonio Liuzzi ever was.  However, the car’s ultimate lack of pace could be the downfall for these two talented racers.

Sauber-Ferrari

16           Kamur Kobayashi (JPN)

17           Sergio Perez (MEX)

The distinctive feature of the Sauber last year was no sponsorship whatsoever.  However, with rich Mexican businessman Carlos Slim onboard, that changes in 2011.  Young Mexican Sergio Perez’s arrival is a interesting move, as it means there will be a lack of experience on the driver front.  Perez looks either fast or wreckless and he is bound to add a lot of flair and charisma to the team.  They have plenty of that in Kamur Kobayashi already.  The Japanese is expected to thrill everyone again with his no holds barred attitude of driving and has all the talent in the world, if he tones down on the wackiness that can lead the Japanese into serious trouble.  The car looks very promising but it may need early development if they wish to be regular point’s scorers.

Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari

18           Sebastian Buemi (SUI)

19           Jaime Alguesuari (SPA)

The departures of Gerhard Berger and Sebastian Vettel hit Toro Rosso very hard at the end of 2008, and they haven’t recovered since.  The car looks very strong and far more consistent than its previous challengers.  Even Lewis Hamilton has told the media to keep a watch on them.  Sebastian Buemi enters his third season and was a massive disappointment last season.  The Swiss driver is under pressure to deliver, especially with the highly-rated Daniel Ricciardo waiting in the wings as third driver.  Buemi will need to perform from the off, if he doesn’t want to go the same way as Scott Speed and Sebastian Bourdais; in earning the sack mid-season.  Plus, we know Franz Tost doesn’t accept any excuses.  Jamie Alguesuari is in a slightly more secure position and has the knack to pull off some daring overtaking moves.  He needs to improve his qualifying performances, and eliminate some of the careless driving which you’d expect to see from a rush hour driver on the M25’s hard shoulder!  With Ricciardo waiting and watching, the loser of this team-mate battle is likely to be out of F1, so this could be an intriguing watch.

Team Lotus Renault

20           Heikki Kovalainen (FIN)

21           Jarno Trulli (ITA)

Team Lotus, as they are now known were the class of the new teams in 2010, and have closed the gap to the midfield in winter testing.  With two experience racers and a strong reserve in Karun Chandok, excuses will be less vain this season.  The move to Renault engines and gearboxes has caused some severe reliability bugs, which has consequently hurt their testing mileages.  However, don’t be surprised if they begin to give Toro Rosso and Force India some severe headaches this season.  Points are a necessity this time around and Heikki Kovalainen looks a class driver, after his mere at McLaren.  Kovalainen is expected to lead the team from the front again and will cause some giant-killing upsets, similar to Takuma Sato at Super Aguri in 2007.  Jarno Trulli’s speed over one lap is still as strong as ever, but his racecraft last year was frankly dismal.  2011 is surely Jarno’s last chance to fulfil anything decent onto his CV, otherwise he will end up like Olivier Panis; winning the Monaco Grand Prix once and did very little else with so much supposed talent.

HRT-Cosworth

22           Narain Karthikeyan (IND)

23           Vitantonio Liuzzi (ITA)

Is this becoming the ‘Andrea Moda’ of 2011?  Remember that joke of the 1992 team that evaded taxes, cars broke down meters from rolling out of the garage.  Well, having your entire car failing to get through customs certainly qualifies for this title.  Narain Karthikeyan is only on board for Indian sponsorship whilst Vitantonio Liuzzi will bring experience of driving for backmarker teams.  With no pre-season testing AGAIN, it is once again going to be a battle for survival till the end of the season for HRT.

Marussia Virgin-Cosworth

24           Timo Glock (GER)

25           Jerome D’Ambrosio (BEL)

They were F1’s joke team of 2010, especially by not building a fuel tank big enough to finish the early season races.  However, the future looks bright, especially with backing from Russian sportscar brand Marussia and a confident new rookie in Jerome D’Ambrosio.  Timo Glock drove brilliantly in the second half of last season and will be there to pick up the pieces and grab the odd point, but they will struggle to be regular midfield runners.

Rules

As with nearly every F1 season, there have been some changes to the rules this season.  The 107% rule returns for qualifying for the first time since 2002 to prove that cars are quick enough to race, this will only apply to Q1 and if the qualifying session is wet, the rule will not be used.  Pirelli replaces Bridgestone as the tyre supplier and has been challenged by the FIA to produce a tyre that grains more and causes drivers to pit more often.  So far, this seems to have worked and it certainly spice up the racing.

     KERS returns after a season away and is once again optional for the teams to use it or not.  The most innovative concept for 2011 is an adjustable rear wing, which will aid more overtaking particularly on very long straights.  Gearboxes must now last five races instead of four in another case of cost cutting measures and the safety car rules have been tweaked once again with the overtake line abolished after the controversy surrounding it last year, meaning drivers again can only overtake when they’ve crossed the start/finish line at the restart.

For the 2011 season, I will be posting the following on the Formula One season

- A race report from all 19 events in the 2011 FIA Formula 1 World Championship

- NEW! F1 classic races (A brief lookback at six/seven classic events from the country that is about to stage a race that weekend)

- NEW! Replacing 'The Conclusions' will be a new personal blog.  'The Finishing Straight' by HappyDude88 will be online every Tuesday after the Grand Prix weekend, where I will be giving my own personal take on the weekend's events.