SPANISH, MONACO & EUROPEAN GP’S
- 20 May 2013
Due to some nasty little shit who, if I ever find out their name, will assist me in finding the fine balance between extreme agony and loss of consciousness, hit the computers of Multi Media Motor Sport with a particularly unpleasant virus. The resulting wiping of hard drives & rebuilding of PCs, and of course, not wanting to spread this bug via this website meant a lengthy delay in uploading anything to the site. Including reports on the last 3 GPs which is a real bummer as they were all pretty damned good ones.
So, a sort of summary of them all, in one hit. As predicted after Imola it has been McLaren who has risen to the top of the pack now that they have sorted out their qualifying dramas. Dominant wins for Raikkonen in Catalunya & Monaco, and almost another at the Nurburgring, have propelled him from 11th in the title chase to 2nd in just those 2 races and he remains in that position even after the last lap disaster in Germany. I don’t think any of us have ever seen a front end vibration of quite such severity before, nor I suspect had Kimi. The result of a couple of front right lock-ups earlier in the race had the entire car shuddering even on the straights and the sight of those suspension arms flexing, and the carcass of the tyre squirming on the rim was not one that we will quickly forget. Even as we were all wondering how long it could possibly last it was just the cruelest of luck that it would cause the suspension to collapse with just under 1 lap, just two lousy miles to go before he could claim a hat-trick of victories and close the gap to Alonso to 20 points. Alonso, the lucky recipient of Raikkonen’s lost win now has what would seem to be an unassailable 32 point lead in the championship. There may be a long way to go before the title race is over but it will take a lot of bad luck to strike the Renault driver for Raikkonen to catch him and on current form, it is only the McLarens that are in with any real chance.
Sure, Toyota’s Jarno Trulli is equal second with Raikkonen at this stage but the performance of the Toyotas is starting to drop back to the rest of the field (they have only scored 4 points in the last two races) while McLaren is now in a class of it’s own. Renault are still second best but who would have thought a few races ago that they would start eating their rear tyres in such a vicious fashion? The site of crippled Renaults at Monaco is one that no-one would have predicted at the beginning of the year. They began the year with so much weight bias toward the rear of the car that their main concern was under-steer but as they have added more downforce to the front it has altered the balance of the car to such an extent that they are now rooting rear tyres in much the same way as Williams were at the start of the year.
Williams on the other hand are on the up with fine podiums for Heidfeld (2nd at both Monaco and the Nurburgring) and Webber in the last couple of races. They have gained this increase in race performance without any loss of qualifying pace. Webber has qualified in the top 3 in the last three races and Heidfeld gave us all a pleasant surprise with his pole in Germany even if he was on a lighter fuel load. One suspects that a win for either of these drivers is not all that far away. Perhaps even this weekend in Canada as Williams always seems to go well there. Had Webber not gone off at the first corner in Germany perhaps he would have been the one to inherit Raikkonen’s lost win, he was on a similar fuel strategy as the Finn and Alonso and had qualified ahead of the Spaniard.
The only major team making no progress at all is still Ferrari. They are either still eating their race tyres like an Ethiopian in a bakery (I was going to use Biafran there but many of you would not be old enough to know what I was on about so Ethiopian will have to do) such as the Red Barron did in Spain where he had two tyre failures in two laps, or using tyres that are so hard they cannot get any warmth into them until after about 10-15 laps, which is 9-14 laps more than they have for qualifying. Their race pace after extended running at Monaco & Germany was quite quick but they are starting too far back and taking too long to get up to speed. It is not just their tyres however. The fact that the cars run faster on heavy tanks than they do on low fuel is a dead giveaway to a serious lack of downforce and balance. It is interesting to note that they had to take downforce out of the car at Monaco to get any sort of balance. Everyone else cranks it on there.
Also interesting to see just how slow the BAR-Hondas were now that they have to run their car at the same weight as everyone else. Neither Button or Sato were able to run in the top ten in Germany, indeed Sato spent much of the race battling with the Jordans. They have a lot of work to do to regain any sort of respectability. Good to see Red Bull still punching well above their weight with excellent performances from DC in both Monaco, where a podium was not out of the question until being rammed by Schumacher in the Mirabeau fiasco and a superb forth in Germany despite a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Liuzzi has been a bit of a disappointment but only because he was overhyped. His performances have been no better or worse than any other rookie in his first few races and I believe that he would benefit from being relegated to the third driver for the rest of the year. Klien is back as DC’s team mate for the time being and American GP2 driver, Scott Sharp will be the third (Friday) driver in Canada & the US. Klien impressed everyone with his speed in Monaco especially through Massinet and the Casino square complex and is showing the benefits of a years experience. Liuzzi will be good, he just needs time and practice.
Even the battle for the rear end Charlie is hotting up. With the Minardi PS05 starting to show some (relative) pace they are doing what they set out to do as their objective and that is to battle and beat the Jordans.
The only dark spot is the form of Sauber and Villeneuve. And after Monaco the less said, the better. Five dramatic and exciting Grand Prixs in a row. Just a year ago, who’d a thunk it?
Sam Snape
7-6 2005