This was shown this week on the UK edition of Top Gear. Apparently Bernie Ecclestone has decreed that the F1 footage shown in here is never to be broadcast again.
Just watching the Senna footage just reminds me of how great F1 was when I was a kid and how crap things are today in comparison, especially when you watch last week’s German GP. The tifosi may think that Schumacher is the greatest or that Alonso is the best driver today, but they just don’t compare at all, especially when you note that Schumacher and Alonso have made sure that their team mates are not challengers to them, while Senna went out of his way to be the team-mate of Alain Prost who at the time was considered to be the best driver of that generation, just so he could prove that he was better. Senna didn’t need his team mates (or anyone else) to be told to get out of the way so he could pass, he would just pull out some amazing overtaking manoeuvres.
I first said this four or so years ago, but could the Australian media PLEASE GET OFF MARK WEBBER’S BACK?!!! I am really fed up with these clowns in the media who constantly criticise Mark Webber because he has not lived up to their expectations. Even after a stunning lights to flag victory in the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona the media still has to try to knock down the tall poppy instead of celebrating his dominant performance.
What shines through every time that morons such as Triple M’s Roy & HG or 3AW’s Dwayne Russell or the Herald Sun’s Daryl Timms criticise Webber is just how ignorant they are about Formula 1. I have watched every single Formula 1 race since the 1985 Australian Grand Prix, but it is obvious that these big-mouthed buffoons only ever watch one race, the Australian Grand Prix, a year. For instance all have made comments about Mark not finishing races, yet ever since he joined Red Bull he has only failed to finish a handfull of times. Last year he had just two DNFs. GUYS, 2006 WAS FOUR YEARS AGO!!!
As I said earlier, the big problem is that Mark never lived up to the knockers expectations. They wanted him to be a Schumacher or Prost yet are so ignorant about Formula 1 that they don’t realise there is no level playing field in the sport and that to win you have to be driving for the one of the best teams, which Mark has only done in the last couple of years. They will point to his stint at Williams as a time when he was in a top team but Williams have become a shell of their former self. When Mark was there Williams went through an acrimonious split with BMW, who were replaced as engine supplier by the horribly unreliable and underfunded Cosworth. Juan Pablo Montoya told Mark that he made a huge mistake going to Williams despite the fact that JPM won the last GP of 2004.
This year Mark is the clear second favourite for the World Drivers Championship. Adrian Newey and Red Bull have built the fastest car on the grid and despite the fact that I have tipped Webber’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel to win the championship, I hope that Mark can do it just to shut all the idiots in the media up.
By the way, with three wins so far Mark has won more Grands Prix than…
I should have done this earlier in the week but I have been very busy. On Sunday the Belgian GP was run and won by the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. It was the first Ferrari victory of 2009 and Kimi’s first for 25 races, but he did not have everything all his own way for the unlikely Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella shadowed the scarlet machine all the way to the chequered flag. Fisi would have won the race if Kimi’s car was not equipped with the magic KERS button which enabled the Finn to overtake the Italian. Third place was taken by Sebastian Vettel who now moves a little bit closer to title leader Jenson Button in the World Driver’s Championship.
The main talking points of the race would be the first lap shunts which claimed the cars of both Lewis Hamilton and championship leader Jenson Button, who were taken out by rookies Jaime Alguersuari and Romain Grosjean respectively. Mark Webber’s race was ruined by a pit error when the Red Bull lollypop man released him into the path of BMW’s Nick Heidfeld, and the Australian had to serve a stop and go penalty. He eventually finished ninth, one place out of the points.
The other talking point is the lack of pace of Ferrari’s Luca Badoer, who again was the final finisher. Badoer qualified last after crashing at the end of Q1 at Spa, a track that he wrongly predicted he would do well at because he knew it so well. His qualifying time was 1.5 seconds slower in Q1 than his teammates. He finished the race 1 minute 42 seconds behind the victorious Kimi, and 48 seconds behind the 13th placed Williams of Kazuki Nakajima. It seems that Ferrari though have finally seen the light and have replaced the hapless (hopeless) Badoer with Fisichella until the end of the 2009 season.
In the championship title race Button leads Barrichello by 16 points, with Vettel a further three points back with five races remaining. Webber too still has a chance of becoming world champion as he is just 1.5 points behind Vettel.
Rubens Barrichello won last Sunday’s European Grand Prix in Valencia to set up what is now an intriguing four way tussle for the 2009 World Driver’s Championship. The popular Brazilian has jumped to second place in the standings behind his Brawn team mate Jenson Button, leapfrogging the Red Bull duo of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.
Even though the resurgent McLaren of the current World Champion Lewis Hamilton lead for most of the race, Barrichello took a flawless victory after the Brit was hampered by an uncharacteristically Ferrari-esque McLaren pit stop which handed Rubens the lead of the race. Ferrari’s mullet-man Kimi Raikkonen brought his red racer home in a solid third position.
Of the other contenders for the World Championship Crown only Jenson Button scored points with his sixth placing, extending his lead over Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel. Webber had a rather lackluster race finishing ninth, while Vettel’s race was wrecked by a pit stop bungle and then a blown Renault engine, the second that he suffered on the weekend.
The only other talking point of the weekend was the performance, or lack of, of Ferrari’s Luca Badoer, who is subbing for the injured Felipe Massa. Badoer was a major embarrassment for Ferrari, qualifying last on the grid and then plodding around at the rear of the field, making rookie errors and even spinning one time. Badoer has not competed in F1 for a decade and it was only expected that his racing would prove a little rusty. However while Luca’s lack of recent racing may explain some of his poor performance on the weekend it should be remembered that he was never a very good driver back when he was competing in Formula 1 in the 1990s. It is with very good reason that Badoer is still the driver who has the started the most races without scoring a single World Championship point. While he has been Ferrari’s test driver for ten years and apparently a big reason for the Prancing Horse’s success in the early 2000s we should also remember that the last time Ferrari needed a substitute driver in 1999 when Michael Schumacher broke his leg, team manager Jean Todt overlooked Badoer for Mika Salo. Apparently Luca has been an ultimatum to perform at Spa this weekend or else his F1 race career will be over. Still, I think that Ferrari would have been better off using their other test driver Marc Gene, who has been competing recently at LeMans with the triumphant Peugeot team, and has been a regular member of the successful Maserati team in the GT championship.
I haven’t really been blogging much in the last couple of weeks. I have been much too busy redecorating this place and am still only a quarter of the way through. We have been moving boxes of junk and other stuff to our storage locker, which was a logistical nightmare to do when you don’t own a car.
My jury duty begins on Wednesday. I am sort of looking forward to it, although I’m not sure if I really want to do it. I am really nervous about things and feel that I’ll probably have the misfortune to be on a lengthy murder trial. It would be juicy to be part of this, but I really have lots of other things that I’d rather be doing.
Finally I must give my congratulations to Mark Webber on his first win. I knew that he would eventually break through and unlike all of those knockers I never doubted him. It always made me angry whenever I heard the so-called experts, people who in reality know nothing about Formula 1 yet get paid to talk about sport on the radio, make wise crack after wise crack about Webber. I’m glad that he is finally able to make them eat some humble pie. I’d also like to make special mention of Triple M’s Roy & HG. Anybody who regularly listens to this program (yes all three of you) would know that this duo has taken particular delight in Mark’s constant bad luck. I am particularly glad that in a week when there is speculation about Roy & HG’s show being cancelled like many other failing programs on Triple M that Webber was able to break through for a win.
I should also make a special mention of Triple M’s falling fortunes. They are currently being hammered in the ratings, with even Vega scoring more listeners. There are many reasons why Triple M is failing which everyone except the management there can see. Perhaps if they did more than play songs from ‘the awesome 80s’ and the comedy they featured on their station actually contained comedy (you know, stuff that is funny) they would be more successful. Maybe if they did not simulcast shows from Sydney and actually produced shows for Melbourne in Melbourne then more Melbournians would be listening. I still remember listening to a show (the Shebang) a few years ago which featured a commercial for North Sydney Alfa Romeo. Obviously some genius forgot to press the button that plays the local ads when they went to a commercial break.
I’ve been trying to feign interest in Formula 1 but it has been very difficult lately. The political games that are getting played behind the scenes are just making me bored of the whole sport. Still, with the news the other day that FOTA are planning a breakaway series my interest picked up. I have maintained for a long time that the sport really needs to get rid of Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone if they are going to prosper in anyway. Bernie’s greed and Max’s crazy decision making has made watching the sport quite tiresome in recent years. Then again with Max and the FIA in charge it was only a matter of time before F1 self destructed because of his constant and confusing interfering and rule changing. Just look at what happened with the Le Mans Sportscar series back in the early 90s when Max (with Bernie’s prompting) made some changes, or even more recently with the World Rally Championship. Sigh!
Back to this weekend’s British Grand Prix. Usually when doing this I would predict an easy victory for Jenson Button and Brawn GP but I don’t think so this time. Qualifying has finished just over an hour ago and it looks like the Brit is struggling at his home circuit. He was not really close to the top in any of the three qualifying sessions and will only start in sixth place tonight.
The Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber dominated qualifying much how they have dominated practice ever since they arrived at Silverstone. Vettel takes his third pole position of the year while Webber will start in third, behind Ruben Barrichello’s Brawn, after he was blocked by traffic on his final run. I expect that the Red Bulls will romp it in, with Vettel beating Webber home, although this may be Webber’s best chance of taking his maiden victory.
Last night Jenson Button increased his stranglehold on the World Driver’s Championship with a dominant victory in the streets of Monte Carlo, beating his team mate Rubens Barrichello, with Ferraris Kimi Raikkonen in third.
Race Result After 78 of 78 laps
J Button
R Barrichello
K Raikkonen
F Massa
M Webber
N Rosberg
F Alonso
S Bourdais
Button holds a commanding 16 point lead over Barrichello, with the very disappointing Sebastian Vettel a further 12 points behind Rubens.
J Button 51
R Barrichello 35
S Vettel 23
M Webber 19.5
J Trulli 14.5
T Glock 12
F Alonso 11
K Raikkonen 9
L Hamilton 9
F Massa 8
N Rosberg 7.5
N Heidfeld 6
Vettel was extremely disappointing this race. A poor fuel strategy at the start, added to by him ruining his tyres and then topped off by him putting his Red Bull into the barriers. The BMWs and Toyotas both looked extremely slow, which is a major worry as they were quick in testing and at the first GP of the season in Melbourne. Just two races ago in Bahrain it looked like Toyota could have won, but in Monaco they were the slowest of all.
Jenson Button claimed pole position for tonight’s Monaco Grand Prix, but I don’t think that this will guarantee him victory in the race. We all know how important it is to be on pole on the streets of Monte Carlo, but he did not put in a quick lap until the final seconds of qualifying. Raikkonen starts second but has a lighter fuel load and a KERS advantage that should get him into the lead before the first corner.
Vettel is back in 4th and is very light on fuel. He will pit at about lap 12, 9 or 10 laps before Button. I expected better of the Red Bulls here, as they have performed well all week. Webber is starting in 8th place after a poor 3rd qualifying session, even though he was third fastest in Q1 and Q2. His poor strategy has put him way back, but I still think he will be quick enough to challenge for a podium.
The way it looks at the moment, it will be Button and Barrichello, who is starting 3rd, challenging for victory. The Ferrari will lead until the first round of pit stops, but after he pits on lap 18 Button and Barrichello should then dominate the race.
If Vettel was not so light on fuel and was not starting as far back as fourth I would have selected him as the winner, yet his only chance is to get to the front at the start and then run away with the race. Unfortunately the Ferrari has it’s KERS button that should allow it to jump to the lead, while Vettel needs to be a lot more aggressive than he has been lately and pass Button, Barrichello and Raikkonen on the track if he is to have any chance at victory.
This weekend the Formula 1 circus visits the glitziest, most glamorous circuit of them all, Monaco. Even people who don’t care for Grand Prix motor sport know about Monaco. Only the Italian Grand Prix at Monza has a longer history than Monaco.
The streets of Monte Carlo have often proved difficult to master and usually only the best of the best triumph here. Ayrton Senna won at Monaco six times, while Michael Schumacher won there five times, as did Graham Hill. Alain Prost took the chequered flag first at Monaco four times while Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda are other multiple Monaco winners. The names of Fangio, Moss, Keke Rosberg and Gilles Villenueve also grace the winner’s records.
Monaco also can throw up some unusual and controversial results especially if it is wet. In 1981 when Villenueve won he did so in an extremely unwieldy and evil handling but very powerful Ferrari 156 turbo. Monaco, with its short straights and tight corners is a place where a poor handling car is even more of a disadvantage than elsewhere, while the horsepower advantage means less and less, which means that Gilles won by just relying on his uncanny skill and determination.
1982 was another weird result, when Ricardo Patrese took his Brabham BMW to first place. He was very lucky to win though, as he spun and stalled his car on the final lap. This was the race that it seemed no one really wanted to win. Alain Prost led very comfortably in his Renault until lap 74 of 76, when he spectacularly and famously crashed out as the rain began to fall. This put Patrese in the lead until his spin, which then put Pironi, then de Cesaris and finally Sullivan into the lead until each of them either ran out of fuel or crashed out. Patrese finally got his car started again, and crawled to the chequered flag to take the victory.
In 1984 there was another controversial result when Alain Prost took victory in his McLaren TAG, as the race was red flagged before it had reached the half way mark due to the pouring rain. Mansell had led early in his Lotus Renault, but crashed out when the rain came tumbling down. Prost led until the red flag was waved by race marshal Jacky Ickx, just as the rapid Ayrton Senna in the Toleman Hart was about to pass the Frenchman. Many people criticized Ickx for being too hasty with the red flag yet they forget that he was a renowned rain master and that not long after the red flag when Senna passed the Frenchman he thumped a barrier and severely damaged his car. They also neglect the fact that third placed Stefan Bellof was catching both Senna and Prost and would have soon passed them in his Tyrrell Cosworth.
As for the 2009 edition of the Monaco Grand Prix, I feel that the Red Bulls will charge to the chequered flag and win the race, especially if there is any rain. Mark Webber has always done rather well in Monte Carlo taking a podium for BMW Williams a few years back and having led here a couple of times as well. I think that Webber will do wonderfully well this year but wonder if he will be allowed to win the race if he has Sebastian Vettel right behind him. Perhaps if the Red Bulls dominate in a way that I expect they could, then team orders will come into play as at this stage Vettel is the driver with the most realistic hope of catching Button.
The Brawns have been the cars to beat so far this year, but I wonder if the will do as well at Monaco. I don’t think that either Button or Barrichello have records that are worth speaking of in Monte Carlo. Trulli in the Toyota and Raikkonen in the Ferrari are the dark horses in my opinion. They both have good records at Monaco and the Toyota is probably the third best car after the Brawn and Red Bulls, whilst the Spanish Grand Prix showed us that the Ferrari is much improved and could be a threat.
Last night Jenson Button won the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona in what was another dominant display by the Brawn Mercedes team. His teammate Rubens Barrichello finished second with Mark Webber third in his Red Bull Renault.
There were a few interesting talking points that came from a pretty boring race.
Firstly, Brawn changed Jenson Button from a three pit stop strategy to a two pit stop strategy but neglected to change Rubens to a two stopper. It seems that the two stop race was the optimum strategy so why didn’t Brawn change Barrichello to that strategy as well. Rubens seemed a bit annoyed that he was stuck on a three stopper and that he perhaps could have been able to maintain his lead if he had of.
Secondly, Ferrari stuffed things up again. Massa was short fuelled at his final pit stop which meant he could not defend his position at the end of the race. He had superbly gotten his Ferrari into fourth place and had held up the much quicker Sebastian Vettel for most of the race, but had to slow dramatically in the last four laps to conserve fuel. He finally finished sixth after a very slow last lap. Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish after yet another Ferrari mechanical failure put him out of the race.
Finally, what has happened to Sebastian Vettel? He finished fourth but he should have been challenging for a win. Instead he was held up by Massa. Sure, Massa has the advantage of a KERS boost on the straights, but Vettel did not look like challenging Felipe and it seems he was content to sit behind Massa. Contrast this lack of aggression to his teammate who pulled out yet another brilliantly brave overtaking manoeuvre on Fernando Alonso (who also had the advantage of KERS). A lot of experts believe that Vettel is the only man who can challenge Button for the World Driver’s Championship this year but if he is going to do so he needs to be able to overtake someone on the track.
2009 Spanish GP Results
Jenson Button
Rubens Barrichello
Mark Webber
Sebastian Vettel
Fernando Alonso
Felipe Massa
Nick Heidfeld
Nico Rosberg
It looks increasingly likely that Button will win the World Championship this year. He has won four of five races so far and has a 14 point lead over Barrichello. (If Bernie’s gold medal system was being used the championship could be over after the next four races!)
