F1 - WEBBER WINS RED BULL BATTLE OF BRITAIN
Despite Red Rags best efforts to shoot itself in the hoof once again Mark Webber overcame not just his team-mate, but his team as well to dominate the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Webber led from start to finish to win from a determined Hoon and the Unter-Ubermensch’s uber team-mate, Nico Rosberg.
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The storm clouds began gathering on Saturday morning when Vettel’s nose cone collapsed during free practice. Red Rag were trying out some new front wing configurations and the damaged one on Vettel’s car was just one of two available. To Webber’s fury, and the outrage of the sporting press and fans world-wide, team manager Christian Horner took the new wing off Webber’s car and gave it to Vettel for qualifying and the race.
Horner’s justification for this is that as Vettel was the higher placed driver in the championship he should have the best equipment. This would have been acceptable if he was leading Webber by more than just a few points and had been demonstrably the quicker of the two drivers up till this point in the season. Unfortunately the stats don’t reflect this and the only reason that Vettel was ahead of Webber in the championship was his abysmal effort in taking Webber out of the lead in Turkey.
What the rest of the world saw was yet another display of the managements (for wont of a better description) bias towards Vettel over his older team-mate. It is said that Helmut Marko, Red Rag’s overall motor-sport manager, sees the youthful Vettel as a better marketing tool than Webber and therefore forces the team to give the German preference. And of course, the team’s only reason for existence, is as a marketing tool for a soft drink.
It is odd then that Marko doesn’t understand just what bad publicity this apparent bias is causing and just how many people are likely to never consume said soft drink again. And don’t think this is just an Australian based rant. There has been condemnation from all over the world hitting the Red Bull website. Even Germans are calling for this to end. Former F1 and sportscar driver, and now head of VW/Audi motor-sport, Hans Stuck has called for Marko to be sacked and replaced by Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost. "Christian Horner is just a puppet, the strings for Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz are pulled solely by Marko,and whoever decided to take the new wing away from Webber qualified for his final pension. Mateschitz must respond by putting in a new man at Red Bull," he said, recommending the current team boss of Red Bull's second Formula One team for the job. "Tost is in every respect one of the best managers in Formula One," said Stuck.
Another former F1 driver Jos (The Boss) Verstappen (also know as the frying Dutchman after his 1994 Hockenhiem blaze) had a blunter suggestion. "I honestly don't know how I would have reacted in Webber's shoes. I probably would have trodden on the wing; if I'm not allowed to use it, then neither can he,"
Stuck’s comments are a bit harsh on Horner as he and Mark have had a good relationship for quite a while and Horner probably believed that he was doing the right thing. One of the requirements of being a good manager though, is communicating your decisions so that you don’t piss off your employees. Horner admitted that he had not done a particularly good job of this in this instance. Things have reached such a divisive state within the team that Webber’s crew were seen to be taunting Vettel’s crew with Mark’s front wing after the race.
Mean-while there was a race, and not a bad one at that. Vettel consigned himself to a bit part player with a move off the grid that would have made the Unter-Ubermensch proud when he tried to squeeze Webber against the pit wall, but Mark, still in a rage from Saturday’s events was having none of it and muscled his way into a first corner lead. Vettel then tried to squeeze the Hoon and suffered a puncture for his troubles which meant a first lap pit-stop. He rejoined dead last and almost a full lap down.
The Hoon hung on to Webber as best he could but once the Red Rags tyres were bedded in Mark simply drove steadily away from the field. The Hoon had another chance after a safety car had been deployed to remove debris from the track but Webber set his fastest lap of the race so far on the restart lap just to show how much he had in hand over the rest and he was never troubled again.
Rosberg in the Silver Sling had another excellent race taking a calm third ahead of Button in the 2nd McLaren. Jenson had had a shocker in qualifying and lined up only fourteenth but a gamble on a later than most tyre stop saw him jump up the field. Once Kubica had retired and Alonso had taken himself out of play when refusing to hand back a (dubiously) illegally taken place off Kubica Button only had a chasing Williams and Sauber to worry about. Despite the rise in form of Barrichello and Kobayashi in said Williams and Sauber, Button was more of a worry to Rosberg than they were to him.
Behind that pair came Vettel, who benefited greatly from the safety car period to recover much lost ground and a few points places at the end of the race although his tyre banging move to pass Sutil impressed no-one, especially not Sutil. Sutil in turn managed to hold out the Unter-Ubermensch who had been blown to the weeds again and yet another German in Nico Hulkenberg who took the last point scoring position for Williams. Five Germans in the top ten places.
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King Fernando can probably justifiably feel a bit put upon after his penalty at Silverstone. Yes, he did complete his pass on Kubica off the circuit, but only because if he had stayed on the circuit both Kubica, who was pushing him wide, and Alonso would have been out of the race with very bent cars. Personally I thought it was a legitimate pass and the call to hand back the place was incorrect. So did Alonso. Then Kubica went out with a half shaft failure so he couldn’t hand back the place anyway. That should have been the end of it, but no, they smacked King Fernando with a drive through, which coming just after the safety car period put him at the back of the field and right out of points contention. Way too much of a penalty for such a dubious decision.
For full results go to;
Sam Snape
14/07/2010
F1 - WEBBER'S SINGAPORE SALVAGE
A bold pit strategy and some determined driving saw Mark Webber salvage a podium finish and an extended championship lead after a disappointing practice and qualifying left him fifth on the grid behind all his championship rivals. King Fernando meanwhile stormed away from pole position to score yet another flag to flag victory while the Hoon threw away valuable points when a risky passing move on Webber ended in tears.
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The Red Rags are still a team learning how to win. The hit and miss nature of their pit strategies were never more on display than in Singapore on Sunday night. They pulled another blinder out of the bag when they pitted Webber during the first safety car period, a move that initially dropped the championship leader from fifth to eleventh in the queue. But as the track rubbered in he kept himself in the hunt with some storming passing moves and when the McLarens pitted Mark found himself staring at an unlikely podium finish. This pit call was every bit as inspired as his qualifying strategy in Malaysia or the late pit stop in Hungary. Conversely the call to bring Vettel in on the same lap as King Fernando was every bit as bad as Webber’s pit stops in Australia and Malaysia. It robbed the German of any chance of attacking the Spaniard’s place at the front of the pack.
For his part King Fernando was in imperious form. A stunning pole lap was converted into a determined run to the first corner where he just held out the faster starting Vettel and then he simply drove the wheels off the Ferrari and didn’t put a foot wrong all night. If his reaction time at the start had been a fraction of a second quicker this would have been the perfect performance. The fact that quite evidently, from the pit radio calls, he was on the very limit the whole time in a car that lacked the outright pace of his chaser put this drive into the realms of the truly great. Fangio at the Nurburgring in ‘57, Moss at Monaco ‘61, Stewart in the rain at the ‘ring circa ’68 or Villeneuve at Jarama in ‘81, it was that sort of performance. It may not have looked quite like that on the idiot box but if King Fernando can pull back those last eleven points and grab the title out of Webber’s mitts, this will be the drive that is remembered for a long time.
Vettel meanwhile admitted over the radio that he was hardly pushing at all on his run home to second place. As he was never more than a couple of seconds behind the red Royal perhaps he should have been. He may have had a chance of taking the lead during the tyre stops but for some un-God-known reason the Red Rag boys pitted him on the same lap. This robbed Vettel of the chance of a few flying laps and the possibility of leapfrogging Alonso and ensured that at best, he was going to follow the Ferrari home. Since his Belgian Button bugger-up it seems Vettel has become a little too cautious about attacking the car in front. Mind you, it is a very fine line between a pat on the back and a kick in the pants.
His usually more circumspect team-mate, the aforementioned Mr Webber, showed that passing was quite possible with a trio of superb moves after the first restart. Considering the reputations of two of the other drivers involved in these manoeuvres they were quite fearless for a guy defending his championship lead. First to fall was Timo Glock in the Virgin at the restart followed shortly after by Japanese Sauber star Kamui Kobayashi (and we all remember just what he did to Kazuki Nakajima in Brazil last year) when he ran slightly wide and Webber charged down the inside for the next turn. To be fair to Kamui he left just enough racing room and in an excellent defensive effort almost forced Mark into braking too late. Webber just missed the wall and then had to take a defensive line himself through the next couple of turns to hold onto his hard earned ninth place. Next in line was the Unter-Ubermensch and if he was prepared to push Rubens into the Hungarian pit wall for tenth place, what price eighth? He seemed almost chastened however by the outcry from that disgrace and when he repeated Kamui’s error a few laps later, Webber pulled off a repeat pass at the same place and buggered off in pursuit of Barrichello’s Williams. This left Kamui and the kraut to have their own accident later in the piece hence upholding their respective reputations. The Unter-Ubermensch then followed that up by punting off the other Sauber of fellow countryman Nick Heidfeld who was returning from Pirelli testing duties to replace the dumped Pedro de la Rosa.
Once all the late stoppers had pitted Webber found himself in a relatively comfortable third place but then Kobayashi stuffed it into the wall where it was quickly joined in a loving embrace by Bruno Senna’s HRT-Dallara. This meant another safety car and Webber’s advantage over the Hoon was gone. At the restart Webber had to get through both the lapped Virgins and having dispatched the first, was slightly held up by the second. This gave the Hoon his opportunity and the pair raced down the straight with the Hoon pulling ever so slightly ahead. Not far enough ahead though to just take the racing line through the next left-hander as Webber was still along-side the McLaren. No surprise then that when the Hoon turned in the pair touched and the McLaren’s left rear tyre took it’s leave. Webber’s right front only just stayed on the rim and he was able to continue and take that important podium finish.
And there was plenty more to come. Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica had been happily circulating together in fifth and sixth places before their stops and looked likely to finish that way after the Hoon’s demise. Then Kubica’s Renault picked up a slow puncture in a rear tyre and he pitted for a new set of soft tyres. This dropped the Pole to thirteenth place and he began a terrific charge to the flag. First to fall was the Unter-Ubermensch, followed rapidly by Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso, his team-mate Petrov, Felipe Massa’s Ferrari, Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams and the Force India of Adrian Sutil. Six pretty useful guys dispatched in just nine laps. Alguersuari was having an excellent meeting starting with a superb eleventh in qualifying. Unfortunately a water leak on the formation laps meant that he had to start from the pit lane and so ended any chance of points but he still battled hard through the race to finish on the tail of the group battling for eighth place.
And then just to give the race the ending it deserved the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen burst into flames after contact with Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso. The Finn decided that it was safer to park the inferno on the pit straight than enter the pits and then put out the bon-fire with a borrowed extinguisher as the leaders completed their last lap. So King Fernando and Vettel flashed across the line through the clouds of smoke and extinguisher dust just a couple of tenths apart. Thirty odd seconds back Webber, on damaged and very tired tyres, took that important last podium spot followed by Jenson Button in the sole remaining McLaren. Nico Rosberg and Rubens Barrichello had quiet races to finish fifth and sixth ahead of the charging Kubica, Next up on the road were Sutil and Hulkenberg but they both copped 20 second penalties for cutting corners so Massa inherited eighth place ahead of the squabbling Germans. All in all it doesn’t get much more entertaining than that.
So with just four races left to go the top five drivers are still covered by just twenty five points. Webber, on 202, has extended his lead to eleven now over King Fernando while the Hoon has dropped to twenty points back. Vettel is one point behind the Hoon with Button now an entire win off the lead..
For full results go to;
Sam Snape
28/09/2010
F1- EUROPEAN GP Ð FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE CATATONIC
After all the excitement of the Canadian Grand Prix the world of F1 racing came back to earth with a thud in Valencia. Well maybe not even a thud, more of an oozing squelchly sort of slop really. The only things that kept the eyelids apart were Kobayashi’s last two lap banzai and Mark Webbers attempts to prove that Red Bull really does give you wings. Whereas the excellent Ile Gilles Villeneuve circuit was designed to provide plenty of overtaking opportunities it seems that the circuit in Valencia was designed with a pretty background in mind. It’s a pity for the Spanish that of the four most tedious circuits (Albert Park, Catalunya, Valencia & the Hungaroring) they have two of them. It is a display of King Fernando’s popularity that so many turn up to be bored witless at each of the Iberian races.
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It is a short and easy report to write this one. Vettel took pole, won the dash to the first corner, albeit with a little bumping from the Hoon, and won the race. That’s it really. The Hoon had a fine drive and might have interrupted the snooze-fest but for a drive through penalty for passing the safety car. This penalty was applied twenty minutes after the safety car had come back in so it had no effect on the Hoon’s position in the race, just his position on the track and made sure that he couldn’t challenge for the lead. Button spent the entire race backed up behind the determined Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber and only inherited third when the Japanese driver pitted with five laps to go for his stint on the soft tyres.
Snooooore…………….
Mark Webber briefly gave everyone a collective cardiac moment on lap nine when he applied to join the Red Bull Air-Race series and launching himself off the rear of Kovalainen’s Lotus. Mark had made an average start from second on the grid and got hung out on the dirty line through the first few corners. By the end of lap one he was down in ninth place and was destined for probably no better if he stayed there. An aggressive pit call saw him pit early and he charged back onto the track behind the Lotus. The performance differential between a Red Bull and a Lotus is colossal, and so was the accident that ensued. Unbelievably, Kovalainen decided to “defend” his position and changed his line slightly several times. He then braked earlier than Webber was expecting and the Red Bull was launched skyward after running up the back of the Lotus. After wiping out an overhanging advertising hording the Red Bull then landed upside-down at tremendous velocity and fortunately flipped back upright before ploughing into the tyre wall at undiminished speed. Visions of Webber’s ’99 Le Mans campaign sprang to mind and he was able to walk away from this one as well. Not so many years ago this accident would not have been survivable.
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The procession continued with out much change in the order until Nico Hulkenberg retired the Williams with an exhaust “issue” that had burnt through the bodywork and delaminated his right rear tyre. No more retirements to change the order. After not pitting behind the safety car Kamui Kobayashi held down third place in the Sauber until just five laps from the end. He then bolted out on fresh super-soft tyres and being the only guy out there with any grip, made immediate progress. To the horror of the crowd he took King Fernando with two laps to go and then dived up the inside to Buemi’s Toro Rosso entering the final turn of the final lap. More passing manoeuvres by one guy in two laps than in the entire rest of the field during the rest of the race.
Team Willi made a step forward with both Barrichello and Hulkenberg making Q3 for the first time in the dry. Barrichello converted this into a fine fourth place by the finish for Williams best finish of the year. The Silver Slings, in contrast, took a hefty step backwards and even Nico Rosberg could only manage one point. The Unter-Ubermensch had an even more dismal, but at least less thuggish, time and finished an uninspired fifteenth. No surprise then that the rumours have started about his impending retirement. We shall see.
Apart from that, the sun shined, the back-drop was pretty, the beautiful people watched from a roof top swimming pool and bugger-all happened. The other point-scorers, after nine drivers had been hit with a wet lettuce penalty of five seconds for being too slow behind the safety car were Robert Kubica in fifth place, Sutil in sixth in the Force India ahead of the Banzai kid in seventh, King Fernando, Buemi and Rosberg. Poor old Pedro de la Rosa would have scored his first point since his comeback but was the driver who copped the worst of the wet lettuce and dropped two spots to twelfth.
For full results go to;
Sam Snape
30/06/2010
F1 - THE HOONS CANADIAN CLASSIC
A combination of tyres that did not quite suit the conditions, a track that was being constantly cleaned by overnight rain, and differing strategy calls gave us the best dry Formula 1 race in many a year in Canada. In the end it was an inspired gamble by the McLaren boffins, that was almost over-ridden by Martin Whitmarsh, that gave Team Britannia their second one-two finish in succession. The Red Rags chose a different strategy and went the other way to finish fourth & fifth. But many, many things happened along the way.
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With the surface of the Ile Gilles Villeneuve circuit being super smooth, the decision by Bridgestone to bring the super-soft and medium compound tyres was always going the prove interesting. Considering that, if the conditions proved to be unfavourable, which is precisely what they were, this was a brave decision by Bridgestone which should be applauded. To the uninitiated, it would have appeared that Bridgestone tyres were so bad that they couldn’t last more than a few laps. To others, the tyre choice was in the best interests of the sport as the unsuitable tyres made for differing strategies and great racing. A VERY large debt of gratitude is owed by F1 to Bridgestone for this. Even taking this into consideration, it was only the constant overnight rain that made the tyres unsuitable at all. The rain kept washing away any of the rubber that had been laid down the previous day so that even on race day, the teams went into action on a “green” track which will always cause graining on the softer tyres. By the end of the race, when the track had “rubbered up” graining was much less of an issue. Indeed, Webber ran the entire last twenty laps on the super-soft compound, which had only lasted five to seven laps at the beginning of the race.
Team Britannia gambled on two fronts. One – that the super soft tyres would last just long enough to build up a decent lead over the medium shod Red Rags and; Two – that there would be a safety car in the first few laps and they could get onto the mediums under yellow flags. Neither of these things happened and the McLarens had to pit under race conditions along with Ferrari’s King Fernando the first and this left the Red Rags running one-two on their mediums. At this point it appeared that it was going to be another red-wash, making up for the disharmony of Turkey. This theory held for about another six laps but by then the mediums had also gone off and the leaders were piling into the pits for new boots. This left the astonishing sight of Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso leading a Grand Prix. Just for a little while, he soon joined the others after his moment of glory and changed rubber.
With the Hoon back in front things were now looking better for Team Britannia as everyone now needed another two stops. The Red Rags split their strategy putting Vettel on the Super-soft for this stint and Webber back on the mediums. The hope was that one or the other would get past the McLarens but neither did. Webber looked the most likely as he had a healthy lead after Vettel, The Hoon, Button and Alonso had pitted a second time and if (if being a VERY big word) he could build a lead of about 17 seconds he theoretically could make his stop and rejoin in the lead. He managed to stretch it out to 12 seconds before the pack began to reel him in again. With his final sting being on the super-soft he couldn’t come in too early so he had to hang on until there were just twenty laps to go and by then he had just lost the lead. Mark rejoined in fifth and there he stayed.
While all this was going on the highlight of the race was also being played out between the Hoon & King Fernando. The pair battled furiously for a few laps before the Hoon’s second stop but always gave each other just enough track room. This fight was Grand Prix racing at it’s most exhilarating. Two of the top drivers of the era in a classic duel that unfortunately lasted too short a time. The Hoon dived into the pits as the pair battled side by side down the back straight and King Fernando immediately put in a lap 1.5 seconds quicker than his previous pace. Unfortunately on his in-lap Alonso got held up behind a back marker and lost possibly two seconds. Naturally he rejoined back behind the Hoon and as the race drew to a close he was also passed by Button to finish a fine third.
An equally spirited, but not so polished, scrap was the race long duel between Vitantonio Liuzzi and Felipe Massa who seemed to spend the entire race locked in battle. It was all a bit messy and the pair came together three times before turn two was finished and resulted in Liuzzi visiting the pits early for a new nose. A change of tyres at this point helped though and once the race long dice was over the Italian had scored points while the Brazilian didn’t.
The reason he didn’t was the utterly contemptible performance by the Unter-Ubermensch. While showing absolutely none of his former skill he displayed all of his former thuggishness and ran several drivers off the track in a drive that ended, deservedly, outside the points. He began by pushing the vastly quicker Robert Kubica off, only to be passed by the Pole a lap later. His supreme moment came when he drove his former “friend” and team-mate, Felipe Massa into the wall on the fastest part of the circuit. Massa had to pit for a new nose which is why he scored no points. It was pure justice that he lost the final few point scoring positions in the last lap. Unbelievably he was not given some sort of penalty by the FIA for this appalling behaviour.
Oh yeah, it’s so good he’s back…….I think I’ve said that before. The good thing is once again he was blown to the weeds by Nico Rosberg who finished a handy sixth after a steady race in a Mercedes that is just not on the front-running pace. Sixth was the best that could have been achieved and sixth he got. The final point scorers were Robert Kubica in seventh, after another fine drive in the Renault, Sebastien Buemi in eighth in the Toro Rosso after his moment of glory in the lead and the Force India pair of Vitantonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil.
For the full results go to;
Sam Snape
16-06-2010
MAL SIMPSON Ð JUST QUIETLY, A CHAMPION
On Saturday, June 12, Australian Motorsport lost one of its higher achievers. Mal Simpson may not have been a driver or team owner, as he put it, he was just “the boy’s” mechanic. It just so happens that “the boy” was Stirling Moss and throughout Moss’ time with the Rob Walker Racing Team, Mal worked on his cars under the legendary Alf Francis.
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Mal began his career as a racing mechanic working for the likes of Fred Vogel and Ralph Sach in his mid twenties, but with a passion for Grand Prix cars, the MGs of the Sydney-siders was just not enough. Mal moved to England to follow that dream and with a bit of luck met Tony Caldersmith, who he had known in Sydney, who was at the time working for Team Lotus. Tony introduced him to “either Willie Griffith or Jim Endruweit” who gave Mal a job at Lotus.
He didn’t stay too long at Lotus though, and was soon working for Rob Walker. Now having the reputation as one of Grand Prix racings best mechanics Mal worked on the Formula 1 and Formula 2 cars of the great Stirling Moss. The combination of Mal, Moss and Alf Francis won six world championship Grand Prixs including those stunning victories at Monaco and the Nurburgring for Rob Walker racing. Including non-championship races the trio won twenty formula one races before Moss had his horrific accident at Goodwood in 1962.
With Moss gone, the competitiveness of the Rob Walker entered cars dropped off as did Mal’s desire to remain in Europe. He returned to Australia and took up a position with Comalco which he held until 1984 when he used his vast knowledge to aid his old mate, Fred Vogel in running Fred’s motoring bookstore in Sydney. Not many of the customers of this store would have known just what Mal had achieved in his life as he was not one to talk much about his own part in the Moss saga. When you did get him to speak of those days however, there were some wonderful stories about “the boy” and a true affection for both Stirling and Rob Walker.
In 2004 at the Goodwood Revival I met Stirling for the first time, introducing myself as a friend of Mal’s. There followed a pleasant discussion, not about Stirling, but about the great times he had spent with Mal and just what a genuinely nice, and exceptionally talented fellow Mal was. In typical Stirling fashion, he signed the copy of the Revival programme I had picked up for Mal with the words, “We had much more fun, and much more crumpet.” Mal didn’t want to expand on that either.
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When he finally retired a few years ago Mal moved down to the New South Wales Southern highlands region where he lived close to his long time friend, David McKay. Mal died on Saturday following a long illness and will be greatly missed by all those who had gotten to know him. A friendly, quiet, private man, who just happened to be one of our unknown motor sport greats. I guess that book we tried to talk him into writing will now never be. That is also our loss.
Sam Snape
16-06 2010