With Sebastien Vettel, one never knows what to expect when he gets behind the wheel of the car as one minute circumstances are for him allowing him to pull away and comfortably dominate a race and the next, the others are much closer, even surpassing him in places during qualifying.
This time, it was one of those former moments as he was able to lead comfortably almost from lights to flag (with only two brief respites as Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton led during the pit stop phases)...
This race saw a number of incidents, namely the one involving Adrian Sutil's failure to heed to blue flags causing Hamilton (a superb drive otherwise imo!) to ultimately be caught and passed by Fernando Alonso who by and large drove an impressive race having qualified in (find position here).
From what I saw of the incident he clearly didn't look like he was in a hurry to give up track for more than a reasonable amount of time to Hamilton resulting in a message to the team to 'get him out of the way'. But these things happen, this is racing and at times drivers can be so focused on their own race when they're not at the sharp end of the grid, that they forget that other racers are driving for points and for championships.
A big shout out to Valtteri Bottas who was an impressive third behind Hamilton with an electric 1m 25.897s in qualifying, only a tad shy of half a second off the pace of pole-sitter & eventual race winner, Vettel.
It's a shame though that Williams just cannot seem to translate that pace, like Mercedes were at one point, into race pace!
This seemed to catch the others out as with Hamilton joining Vettel on the front of the grid, the others almost seemed to assume that they could take up the natural order from row two backwards.
Not so...
Take Romain Grosjean for one, qualifying way down in 19th position (out of whack if there ever was an order because he's normally way better than this!), his ten place grid penalty from Monaco meant that he should have been starting from 29th on the grid, an impossibility given that there are only 22 cars on the grid!
It's weird for me, because Grosjean looks like one race weekend he has it all together and the car works to his benefit and the next, he's left languishing out in the cold, when his talent is clear for all to see (if a bit reckless at times), he's just not consistent enough.
Kimi Raikonnen was another unfortunate as normally the Lotus has been performing exceedingly well both before and since this controversial furore over the tyres hit the headlines. He's won himself a race already this year, taking victory at the opening round of the season in Melbourne with a commanding performance and yet this time the car just did not seem to have what it takes to stay up at the front ending up with him languishing in xth position.
Other highlights (or low-lights) included Giedo Van Der Garde colliding with Mark Webber, resulting in front wing damage that ultimately resulted in a 10 second stop/go penalty for the former resulting in Alonso being able to pass Webber who ended up finishing behind Hamilton in 4th.
It was certainly an enjoyable affair and so it should come as no surprise who I've picked as my driver of the day.
Sebastien Vettel
This man just doesn't know when to give up!
He was as commanding as he has been in recent years, opening up a fourteen and a half second lead in his victory over Alonso to go 36 points clear of the same man meaning that even a DNF the next race will not see him secede the position to him.
I certainly think that this was a track where Red Bull Racing could get the full hang of the way the tyres were operating at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve allowing him to lead some might say effortlessly (though he was nearly in the Wall of Champions, getting that close he scuffed his tyres against it, he was trying that hard!), but I just say that he got his head down and got on with the job at hand giving him some breathing space now going into Budapest.
So, giving my 'Driver of the Day' awards some consideration after the 1/3 season distance marker, here's how my table looks: -
D.o.D. Winner
|
No.
|
Vettel
|
2
|
Alonso
|
1
|
Di Resta
|
1
|
Hamilton
|
1
|
Ricciardo
|
1
|
Rosberg
|
1
|
As you can see, there's only one award separating Vettel from the other winners of my (I would say "prestigious" here, but I'm only doing it to get down who I think deserves mention each race day!) 'Driver of the Day' award, so it's still anybody's guess who I'll be awarding the 'Driver of the Season' award to, isn't it?
Hungary for some more action now that the season's a third over (yes I did have to do that one, lol!)? I know I for sure am so stay tuned for more reviews of the F1 season as it goes along, bro's (edit: it's actually Silverstone and the British GP at the end of this month, d'oh!)!
Peace out!
The Lanky Penguin
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