Further thoughts on the Korean Grand Prix

Tyred out

Are teams getting their
heads around the Pirellis
Credit: Rich Jones / CC

In F1, as in many things, history has a tendency to repeat itself. The broad pattern of 2012 is a lot like that of 2011. We start the year with apparently 'gumball' Pirelli tyres giving the teams plenty of headaches, providing a large random element to F1 races and even resulting in some complaining that such a 'lottery' is bad for the sport. But eventually teams get their heads around the rubber by the latter part of the season, thus giving us much more 'standard' fare.

That we've just had three rather sedate races in a row (in comparison to those earlier in the year) is evidence of this, as is that the championship battle has become a technical development war, the sort that we've grown used to, with the behaviour of the Pirellis hardly mentioned in the analysis of it. That the Red Bulls and Ferrari finished two-by-two at the front in Korea is also evidence of the establishment of some sort of order.

Be careful what you wish for, as the saying goes. This may not be a thought shared by purists, but I rather miss the gumball Pirelli lotteries.

Woking woes

McLaren - something fundamentally amiss?
Credit: Morio / CC

Perhaps uniquely for an F1 race after this year's summer break, the Korean Grand Prix result did not fundamentally change the picture of the championship battle, merely continued previous momentum. What's more, it seemed to give us something close to clarity in that battle, it now apparently boiling down to one for two players: Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull and Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.

Yet one team is conspicuous by its absence from all of this. Indeed, it was the very team that at the season's outset looked set to dominate the year; the team that's probably had the most effective and consistently competitive car of the season; the team that is one of the best-resourced squads in the sport and has been so for decades. Yet a team that's managed to (presumably) fritter all this away in the hunt for titles this year. Both drivers have conceded that their championship chances are over, and prospect of the constructors' title now also looks remote. Indeed, it's just sank behind Ferrari, not a team geared to the constructors' title, into third place in the standings. And it's not a new thing, the team has only won one of the last 20 constructors' championships (and just three drivers' titles in that time).

Korean GP Report: Seb scales the summit

There's usually something reassuring about something that doesn't change. And for Red Bull right now it must be especially so.

Today's Korean Grand Prix was almost entirely like last year's: Sebastian Vettel (atypically) qualifying second, but seizing the front pretty much immediately then controlling things from there, leading all the way to win and never looking under any sort of threat. Indeed, for Red Bull it's much more broadly becoming just like 2011; right now its is the car to beat everywhere, particularly in Seb's hands. The German's now not been headed in a race since Lewis Hamilton's gearbox failed in Singapore close to a month ago, and he's claimed three wins on the spin in a year in which previously no one had even got two in a row.

No one got near to Sebastian Vettel today
Credit: Ryan Bayona / CC

Even better for Seb he's now scaled the summit of the drivers' table, six points clear after being 44 behind table-topper Fernando Alonso in Germany. Just like in previous years, currently it looks like the Bulls are timing the title charge to perfection. As Bob Dylan once said, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

In the end the only race in Korea was between Seb and his Pirelli tyres. As he stroked his RB8 around at the front as he liked, his engineer Rocky's radio contact got more and more pained as the race progressed, urging Seb that his tyres could go pop at any moment in a fashion that went far beyond healthy paranoia. Seb showed exactly what he thought of that by setting his fastest lap on the last tour (perhaps working on the premise that the quicker the race finished the less time there'd be for his tyres to fail). But by all accounts it was a genuine concern on the pit wall. Yet Seb got the better of that fight, as he did almost all fights in Korea.

Yeongam Qualifying: Webber provides home discomforts

Mark Webber likes to remind us, just from time to from, that he's a contender.

Just as in Japan, from an early point of the weekend Sebastian Vettel looked the guy to beat in Korea, and it continued to look that way in qualifying. And presumably it would all be a prelude to him bossing the race out front as we've seen from him countless times.

Mark Webber will start at the front tomorrow
Credit: Ryan Bayona / CC

This remained the case right up until the final, vital qualifying run, that's when Seb was reminded that for all of the RB8's improvements in recent times he has opposition in residence. Webber put the thing on its nose and sneaked under Vettel's time. Vettel, behind him, didn't get it right in the first two sectors of his final lap, thus ensuring that the Red Bull front row lock-out perhaps unusually features Aussie Grit ahead.

Is Mark Webber as good as the likes of Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, or his team mate Vettel? Ultimately, probably not. But he's certainly capable of living with them, keeping them honest, and on many days of plain beating them. Today was one such day.

Yeongam Preview: When things go bad

Were someone to ask you how the F1 calendar has changed in the last 10 years or so, or alternatively ask what the financial model of F1 is these days, in both cases you'd probably come up with the same answer.

F1 has incrementally shifted eastwards in recent times, to the point that today no fewer than eight of the rounds are in Asia (rewind to 1998 and there was only one). The story of the new countries joining the calendar usually goes something like this: a government decides it wants to stage a Grand Prix, and is prepared to pay top dollar to the sport to do so. Yes, it'll likely make a financial loss, but it'll write the loss off either as helping a national branding exercise as a 'place to do business' or else to attract more tourists (or both).

But, sadly, the Yeongam facility in Korea shows what happens when things go bad with this.

Yeongam's backdrop is unmistakable,
but not for good reasons
Credit: formulasantander.com / CC

It started with good intentions, and no little ambition. The talk was of a street circuit in reverse, with the circuit built and then to be surrounded by a new city complete with a harbour, leisure facilities, hotels etc etc. A Monaco for the new generation if you will. Or perhaps a new Singapore, as a night race was talked about too. It sounded impressive whatever the case.

Before the first F1 visit, in 2010, construction fell behind schedule and the event looked under threat. As it was, the track was approved a matter of days before first practice and everything was alright on the night, although the facility was skeletal. But rather than reflecting mere teething problems it was a portent of things to come.

Further thoughts on the Japanese Grand Prix

Gloves off

The only threat to Sebastian Vettel in Suzuka
came from off the track
Credit: Ryan Bayona / CC

Sebastian Vettel was untouchable in Suzuka, and was so from an early point of the weekend. But on Saturday afternoon about the only threat to his supremacy of the whole meeting emerged, and it came not from the track but from the stewards' room.

Ferrari and Fernando Alonso reckoned that Seb had blocked Alonso at the chicane in the latter's one and only flying lap in the final qualifying session, and estimated they'd lost a tenth of a second or two as a consequence. For some three hours after the qualifying session finished the result was in suspended animation, as all waited to see whether Seb's pole would stand. Eventually the stewards confirmed that yes, Seb had done wrong, but a reprimand was the only punishment.

Ferrari to some extent had a point, in that from a still shot I saw of the 'incident’ it appeared to fall under the category of the sort of thing punished these days (Seb looks to be on the racing line under braking for the chicane, with Alonso off it). And while no two blocking cases are the same, it seemed odd that Jean-Eric Vergne got a three-place drop for an offence under the same broad category in the same qualifying hour by the same set of stewards. Though, as Tony Dodgins pointed out, the stewards have been that way all season when dealing with blocking: some offences have got a five-place grid drop, some three, some just a telling off.

Japanese GP Report: Seb's perfect day

In a country famous for its karaoke, Sebastian Vettel would be forgiven for breaking into some Lou Reed this evening. For him, it was a perfect day.

Early in the weekend Seb talked ominously that he was determined to make up for last year's Suzuka race, where he could 'only' finish third after a conservative race to ensure he got over the line to confirm the drivers' championship as his. Well, it can be said that he did just that. It's clear that Seb sees this track as his fiefdom.

No one got close to Sebastian Vettel today
Credit: Ryan Bayona / CC

He led from pole and won the Japanese Grand Prix imperiously, there never looking to be a race over first place as he established a resolute lead and held it (and occasionally extended it) as he liked. The sort of drive that we've seen from him repeatedly, and that we seem to see from him most years at Suzuka. For Seb, the song remained the same.

Indeed, not just in the race but for most of the weekend he looked untouchable. And what's more, the one guy ahead of him in the title hunt didn't last beyond the first corner, Seb's win thus slashing the championship deficit down to almost nothing. And it's the first back-to-back wins for any driver this season (so much for the 'winner's jinx'). Furthermore, in a year which has been uncharacteristically bitty by Red Bull's haughty standards, in the past two rounds the car's looked just like its old self, the class of the field. All of a sudden, and having operated rather under the radar for most of the year, Seb is now the firm championship favourite.

Hot Schu: Reflections on the career of Michael Schumacher

Infamous British politician of yesteryear Enoch Powell didn't always talk sense, but when he said that 'all political careers end in failure' he was indeed being highly lucid. I've no idea if Powell liked F1, but his words could just as easily have applied to that pursuit too.

And such thoughts would likely have hung very heavy to Michael Schumacher in recent days. The most successful driver by a distance in F1 history was reduced almost to the role of footnote in the grand news of Lewis Hamilton joining Mercedes, Schumi being cleared out of the team to make way. And as part of the aftershocks of the move Schumi, rather than seek a drive further down the pecking order, announced his retirement from the sport days later. It was doubly unfortunate that it came right after a rather egregious error of judgment by Schumi in the Singapore Grand Prix, though to draw any inferences from this would be flawed as the error was atypical of a year in which Schumi, if not quite the driver he was, still drove well.

Michael Schuamcher- waving goodbye
Credit: Mark McAdrle / CC

But, such is life, no matter our achievements almost none of us get to stop at a time of our own choosing.

Whatever the circumstances of his bowing out though Schumacher's impact on F1, and his other-worldly levels of success, cannot be overstated. Rather than leaving his imprints on the sport he stamped size 12 boots all over it. His records defy belief: in a career spanning 21 years from beginning to end and some 301 starts (and counting), he totalled seven world championships, 91 wins (and that's only one shy of the totals of the next two combined - who go by the names of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna), 77 fastest laps and 68 pole positions. Schumacher didn't so much rewrite the F1 record books as redefine them. Most of his records will likely stand for ever.

So, the statistics say that Michael Schumacher is the greatest F1 driver ever. And while statistics only mean so much in F1 when comparing the merits of drivers, given one inevitably ends up with imperfect comparisons, only a churl would argue that he isn't at least among the very best ever seen in the sport.

And we don't have to rely on dry statistics to demonstrate as much. For me Schumacher's greatest achievement as an F1 driver was that he, probably more than any other in the sport's history, redefined what is required of an F1 driver. To put it in simple terms, he raised the bar in a way never done by any one individual before or since, and much of his gargantuan success came when everyone else was scrambling around either bewildered or furiously seeking to adapt.

Suzuka Qualifying: Seb poised for a Bull charge

The championship Bull charge is on, then.

Sebastian Vettel's Singapore win last time out got him to somewhere within range of Fernando Alonso at the drivers' championship top, and on the evidence of today's Suzuka qualifying he fully intends to take another bite out of the lead this time too. Game on for the drivers' title.

Sebastian Vettel - plenty to smile about
Credit: Morio / CC

This is especially as not only did Seb get the pole, it all looked ominously like old times when the Red Bulls would run and hide on a fortnightly basis. For the first time this year the team locked out the front row here at Suzuka, and the qualifying session looked a private Red Bull battle from a very early stage. And indeed Seb continued his record of never not qualifying on pole around this track.

There was a time when everyone could tick off a Suzuka weekend as a Red Bull benefit almost from the point that the calendar was published. This year, in advance, things didn't seem quite so clear, with the Bulls not running away at similar circuits raced on this year in a uncharacteristically bitty campaign for the team (all relatively speaking, of course). But, on today's evidence the RB8 is by now a fundamentally strong racing car. Alonso will have much to think about for the year's remainder.

Suzuka Preview: Big in Japan

They don't make 'em like they used to.

There's nothing quite like Suzuka
Credit: formulasantander.com / CC

Such an aphorism isn't always true, but it sometimes is. And it seems to especially apply to the F1 circuit. Of course, some of the new-fangled Tilke-dromes are better than others, but none has got even close to creating the quickening of the pulse that F1 drivers and aficionados experience when cars circulate Suzuka.

Why is this? Mainly it's that the layout is dominated by rapid, challenging turns, the sort that separate the great from the good, the sort that would most likely be laughed out of court were it proposed these days. Combine this with the track's uncanny knack of being the stage of drama and acrimony, as well as with the large and enthusiastic Japanese support looking on, and you have a near-perfect mix. Indeed, such is Suzuka's classic nature it feels rather like Messrs Nuvolari, Fangio and Clark should have pounded around the track in their heydays; that F1's first visit here was as late as 1987 seems rather incongruous.

You've either got soul or you ain't. Suzuka has it.

So, all feels good with the world as we approach the Suzuka meeting this weekend. And even over and above that it's Suzuka, there are plenty of reasons to think that the on-track action will be close and unpredictable. There are a good few teams entering the weekend with reasons for optimism.

Kaleidoscope shaken: implications of Lewis Hamilton joining Mercedes

In F1, as in life, everything is connected to everything else. Every action has a ripple effect throughout the pitlane; every gap created has to filled.

Indeed, in the case of the movements of Lewis Hamilton, one of the biggest beasts of the F1 plains, one is put in mind of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's celebrated quote on Canada's relations with the USA: 'Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.'

Lewis Hamilton - not in McLaren
colours for much longer
Credit: Ryan Bayona / CC

And unless you've been living in a cave these past couple of days, you'll be aware by now that Lewis has decided to shake the kaleidoscope, not only of his own career but of contemporary F1, by announcing that he'll be leaving McLaren for Mercedes at the year's end. It's the first time since the off season of 2009/2010 that a major driving player in a major driving team has switched employers. The ripple effect of this switch will be felt throughout F1, most heavily at the McLaren team he's leaving and the Mercedes team he's joining but also felt much further potentially. It only remains to be seen where the kaleidoscope pieces settle, and when, both for Lewis and for everyone else.

There has been a lot of speculation as to what encouraged Lewis to reach his decision, and in reality it's likely that no one aside from Lewis himself and a few close to him know the real reasons. It cannot be denied that on competitiveness grounds the move is hard to justify, at least in the short term (though Lewis may be looking a bit further ahead, for various reasons).

But while it seems the basic retainers on offer at McLaren and Mercedes were pretty similar, at his new abode he'll have much more freedom to develop 'brand Lewis' (and he must be interested in this, he wouldn't have signed up with XIX Management in the first place if he wasn't). Many auxiliary reasons have been touted too: that he feels constrained at the 'paternalistic' McLaren and, rather like kid who grew up, is keen to flee the nest and prove himself 'on his own'. The sporting challenge of building up a team that's all potential but currently struggling may also be tempting (as Michael Schumacher was tempted by the Ferrari challenge in 1996), as might the possibility of making a team very much his team, as Fernando Alonso has done so transparently at Ferrari.