F1:Great Britain - A Blowout or Two...

My goodness, I've not seen blowouts like that since I went on a bender several years ago with some of the boys from IBM!

To say that it's like this whole Tyre fiasco is rearing its ugly head again is an understatement, even if Pirelli are saying that it's the way the teams themselves are using the tyres that's to blame for the constant failures.

Yet they have since announced that they will be making changes to them for this weekend's German GP... make up your mind, bro's, you can't have it both ways!

Before I tackle that though, it's onto qualifying...


Qualifying

With Red Bull Racing leading the way in both the Driver's and the Constructor's championships so far, one wouldn't bet on them locking out the front row of the grid again... until Mercedes showed that once again their car is spit hot come qualifying!

Nico Rosberg it was to set the fastest time of "1:31.355" in Q3 only for Lewis Hamilton, having gone purple in sector's one and two, to follow him over the line with an even quicker time of "1:30.995"... impressive!

The highlight (and would be the talking point had not my next paragraph been necessary to write!) was Paul Di Resta qualifying a stunning 5th position with a time of "1:32.062", just .457 of a second off Mark Webber who was driving in his last ever British GP having announced his retirement at the weekend.

I think the biggest talking point of qualifying would be the incident that Sergio Perez had with his left rear tyre that pretty much was fragged in free-practice... surely the same couldn't happen again, could it? Surely lightning could happen to the same guy twice?

Let me answer you this with a quote from Die Hard 2: -

"How can the same s**t happen to the same guy twice?!"

More on that later...

Paul Di Resta was shunted to the back of the starting grid having picked up a penalty for the combination of him and his car being 1.5kg's (that's a bag of sugar and a half to those not in the know!:P) underweight.

According to Vijay Mallya, team prinicpal for Force India this was a mystery to them forcing them to question both the accuracy and the validity of the scales used to weigh both driver and car, so would intend on undergoing further investigation to see what caused that anomaly.

The Race Itself
 
The race was a somewhat livelier affair than otherwise might have been assumed as being, with Hamilton getting off the line quickest, compared to both Rosberg and Webber who got bogged down and sucked back a few places. Instantly there was action as Romain Grosjean, who was once classed as being the 'first lap nutcase' by Webber had a coming together with one and the same forcing his team to frantically consider their options as yet again, for the second race in a row, front wing damage compromised the RBR car's performance.

Hamilton it was who was the first victim to the dreaded tyre blowout having lead the race for the opening eight laps. He was driving well in excess of 100mph when it happened, yet the skill with which he drove the car around the track, given that the incident had occurred near the beginning of the lap, allowed him to rejoin the race albeit well down the pecking order, ruining his chances at a lights to flag victory. This seemed likely given how well he'd gotten off the line and it was mighty unfortunate to say the least.

The next to blowout spectacularly was Felipe Massa's car, same tyre different corner resulting in questions being asked as to whether Pirelli really had solved the problem that had occurred earlier this season.

Now, you bro's know my thoughts on this whole affair so I won't go repeating myself...

Instead I was enjoying this race just as much as I enjoyed the Canadian GP, though I find the next incident where Jean-Eric Vergne (a contender like Daniel Ricciardo for the vacant RBR seat next to Vettel next season) experienced a tyre blowout, same tyre different corner AGAIN!!!

He did sublimely well to control his car and only ran wide just before the entrance to the pit lane meaning he could get in and out without too much difficulty, though the relative damage from the tyre whipping against the framework was to prove too much as he later retired.

The next incident caught me by complete surprise as RBR have been experiencing a great turn of reliability for some time now (in terms of the World Champion's car that is) as when turning onto the start/finish straight Vettel's car seemed to lose all sense of drive and left his gearbox plummeting through the gears until it stuck between first and second offering him no drive whatsoever and thus ended his chances of winning another race and further extending his lead at the top of the points table.

Who was next? Why Sergio Perez of course... it was unfortunate for him to experience a blowout once on a race weekend, but to have it happen twice is just unlucky, desperately, desperately unlucky!

By this time, Rosberg had been keeping his nose clean and despite the couple of safety car periods, he made the second one count in terms of advantages as he came into the pits ahead of Kimi Raikonnen with enough time spare to get back out there and bring home the victory.

Driver of the Day

The highlight of the race for me has to be Daniel Ricciardo's performance (and therefore the reason I am awarding my Driver of the Day trophy to him!) as being in the lofty heights of fifth position at one point must've given his sister team boss, Christian Horner, something to think about when it comes to announcing Mark Webber's replacement in due course.

Is he a shoe-in for the ride?

Well, I think the answer to that lies in the question of whether Raikonnen would work as Vettel's partner... I don't know.

So, having garnered his second award of the season now, I am looking at this man being the winner of the 'Rookie of the Year' that I'll be awarding come season end. Though quite how one can discount Paul Di Resta, who having been penalised to the back of the grid, came through to finish in exactly the same position as he should have started... talk about tenacity!

With Rosberg bringing home the maximum points, it would be who could bring up the remainder of the podium positions and, where appropriate, who could slash Vettel's lead at the top of the championship...?

Turn to Fernando Alonso for this one!

He drove a stunning race having qualified in a disappointing tenth position (I am telling you, that car did not look as impressive as it did when he won earlier this season!). To finish where he did, behind Raikonnen in third position, proves to me that this man is going to keep on keeping on just like he did last year when he pushed Vettel all the way to Brazil before he could confirm his championship win!

Next time out it's off to Germany and the Nurburgring (though admittedly not the full circuit, lol!), so we'll see if there ain't gonna be another German victory, let alone a complete podium lockout as there would have been had both Vettel and Adrian Sutil finished on the podium positions like they were at one point!

Until next time, bro's!

Peace out!


The Lanky Penguin