In some respects the opening race of the season has been a little bit of an anti-climax, all of the rain and questionable conditions appeared yesterday - and ever so slightly in the second part of qualifying at midnight over here in this part of the world. Something that was rather disorienting as it was just before Sunday afternoon in Australia while being Saturday night here - easily enough mess with the simplistic workings of my mind. It was in that midnight session, that a certain German Bloke took a seemingly inevitable dry pole from Webber, while McLaren had no idea what they were up too throwing wrong tyres at both cars at the wrong time - summing up a fairly dismal weekend which wasn't going to get too much better anytime soon. The other important pace setting cars were Ferrari and Mercedes closely followed by Lotus - in the midfield Force India and Sauber were slightly ahead of Torro Rosso while Williams struggled to stay ahead of Marussia and Caterham. But all of that was last night, and because not too much happened I can't see a second batch of bonus points for the session.
Today was raceday, well it was in the very small hours of the morning at Blog HQ, while I let the recorder take care of the footage and I'd catch up with it when I was bored of sleeping - or was awakened by some very confusing dreams where I was in CSI:NY... nope I don't understand that one either. I and several other people would have expected today to be a display of Red Bull dominance, a front row lockout in dry condition seemed almost inevitable. Now while the race was mildly subdued in terms of madness and action, to the extent that no-one made any contact with anyone else throughout the duration of the entire race, and only one non-mechanical retirement. Things were not dull, there was always the potential for things to change and change they did throughout the course of the race. So this is how things played out this morning.
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| image credit to F1Fanatic.co.uk |
The footage opened on a disappointingly dry track - but in the present climate if any rain turned up the powers that be would probably red flag the whole thing and hide in the garages anyway... More disappointment was afoot in the Sauber garage, because Nico Hulkenberg's car didn't have an engine attached, I may not be an expert in automotive engineering but I assume that having an engine is fairly rudimentary to competing. However the fuel system problem could not be repaired before the start of the race leaving us with only 21 cars on the grid.
At the start of the race Webber was in a slightly different time zone than the rest of the grid and lost a lot of places, Hamilton didn't fair too much better loosing places to both Ferraris leaving him with the attentions of Raikkonen's Lotus. Confusingly no-one hit each other in the first corner or any other subsequent corner - Ricciardo was on the grass for a little bit, which was the dramatic high point of the opening corner. There was the briefest glimpse of a flapping front wing endplate on a Marussia but there is no evidence of how or where that happened, in fact if it wasn't for being caught in the corner of the odd camera angle we would have no idea the Marussia team even existed. The same could be said for Caterham - they are merely an enigma, I'm not convinced that Chilton is even on the grid at all....
Anyway with the cars that the TV cameras have heard of, Vettel was not escaping from the Ferrari armada - Massa leading Alonso, something so unnatural in the mindset of the team that Domincali was probably immediately onto the Pope personally to organise some divine intervention. But there was another threat - Raikkonen, with or without a supplimentry ice cream had dealt with the struggling Hamilton and joined the queue behind the German bloke. On the other side of the Red Bull garage Helmut Marko's favourite driver was not having a good day, at the bottom of the top ten with Button - also not having a good day - and Di Resta having a distinctly indifferent day. Mark started the first round of pit-stops as those from Q3 shed their ruined softer tyres, one by one the remainder of the top ten followed suit. The last team to pit were the Mercedes team, compensating a lack of early pace with lower tyre degradation - did that plan help, well frankly no, no it didn't. Leaving a German bloke out front, just not the same one we'd expect as it was Adrian Sutil in the Force India staying out on the medium tyres.
In this middle phase of the race there was a bit of queue forming behind Sutil lead Vettel and the two Ferrari's while Raikkonen lurked just outside of the turbulent air flowing off the surface of Alonso's car. This line of cars went on for quite a while just being orderly and ever so slightly cautious in the opening race of the season. Fernando got bored with this train of cars, and pitted off sequence to get out of line - much to Massa's displeasure who demanded a two stop strategy to counteract Fernando's earlier stop. Sutil pitted next followed in by Vettel only to rejoin to find Alonso had taken a net lead as everyone was now forming up behind Rosberg. At this stage we had no retirements, things were more cagey than a picture of aggression and crazed manoeuvres - that would be where Maldonado came into the equation. Having called the car rubbish after qualifying, Pastor span the thing into the gravel in turn one. While the Williams was being craned away, the second retirement of the day fell to Rosberg, pulling the Mercedes over with some terminal mechanical issue in turn four.
Nothing too much happened after that especially for Ricciardo who was also removed by mechanical failure from the race, as the focus turned to tyre management and the different strategies - and while everyone was opting for 3 stops, there was one exception. For once it was a Mexican now in a McLaren - in fact One-Stop Perez was three stopping and also not having a good day outside the points. This was Raikkonen lurking behind the top three cars with Sutil dropping to 5th, the Finn had been there all race putting in quick laps and maintaining a subtle difference, but staying within on pitstop of Alonso out front put him in a race winning position. When the Ferrari's and Vettel stopped the Lotus inevitably went to the front - well almost the front Sutil had stayed out once more and lead the race. Until Kimi hunted the Force India down and took the position.
Raikkonen was gone - no-one could catch him, Alonso closed the gap in traffic despite almost wiping Charles Pic's Caterham out in the penultimate corner. Because the front of the race had finally been settled the TV people finally acknowledged that there were some other cars in the race - and found where Webber had gone to find he was at the bottom end of the points with Button. Both of which were not having a good day - still. But in the process of not having a good day, he was able to pass Di Resta round the outside of turn nine, going round the outside of people seemed to be theme of the day as a lot of the passes were less than conventional in that manner - albeit DRS assisted. After having a mostly good day so far, Sutil was about to have a very bad day as he switched to the softer compound tyres as per the regulations - the new tyres were blatantly awful. He suffered from severe graining and lost places to Button and Webber - all three not having a good day.
At the end of 58 laps, Kimi Raikkonen stealthed the car to victory - such a covert operation that Vettel didn't even notice that the Lotus had out-stratigised everyone and worked the tyres well. As a result we were all treated to Kimi's happy face, which is not too dissimilar to his other faces - I assume the lack of ice cream may have something to do with that. Fernando drove his Ferrari to second, with a confused Vettel third. Some divine strategical intervention dropped Massa down to fourth followed by Hamilton's Mercedes - the driver move not sounding too bad now. Webber made the most of not having a good day in 6th ahead of both Force India drivers - of which Di Resta was complaining about not having a good day. Speaking of not having a good day, Button picked up 9th - apparently a reflection of their net pace, and Grosjean took the final point.
The Bonus points championship points winners
Despite the race being more of a strategic event than one based on raw speed and overtaking prowess points need to be awarded and are as follows:
- 25pts - Adrian Sutil - I think that counts as a decent comeback and the second consecutive race lead by a Force India, until the tyres disintegrated in the final stint.
- 18pts - Kimi Raikkonen - A very stealthy race, sneaking the race away from Alonso on strategy
- 15pts - Fernando Alonso - Dug himself out of a train of cars and won the three stopper race
- 12pts - Felipe Massa - For beating Fernando on pace most of the time, but lost out on strategy
- 10pts - Lewis Hamilton - Turns out the Mercedes is rather quick after all, just not quick enough
- 8pts - Sebastian Vettel - Suppose the German bloke should have some points
- 6pts - Mark Webber - For the best overtaking move of the race on Di Resta
- 4pts - Esteban Gutierrez - For being the lead rookie, who occupied 5 of the bottom 6 cars
- 2pts - Max Chilton - For not being last, and not hitting Van Der Garde when racing the Caterham
- 1pt - Nico Hulkenberg - Of all the people having a bad day Nico deserves a consolation point
The penalty points championship
Because everyone was being very sensible today, and there was no contact whatsoever between everyone - a couple came close at the start, and Alonso nearly attacked a Caterham, there are no official penalties to add. So we move swiftly on to the penalty points series, which also has limited additions.
- Blue flags - They were out of order today, continually waving them at Sutil, who was racing Red Bull and Ferrari for position - Force India lead most of Brazil last season why is this so unusual
- McLaren - Made a bit of a mess of this haven't we
- Maldonado - Ranting about the team after 20 minutes of compromised running on Saturday is a little harsh frankly
Onto Malaysia
Next up is the first of the Tilke-dromes of the season as we head to Sepang, to a climate of tropical monsoons and elongated red flag periods in the middle of a race, and the very inception of the concept of Kimi's ice cream breaks. Australia is traditionally a hot and dry weekend - and that failed to materialise so who knows what the Malaysian climate has on offer for us next time. There is very little in terms of form that can be carried forward from one race to the next at this stage, because the tracks are so different in configurations. Albert Park is a narrower temporary track, while Sepang is insanely wide, with acres of run-off space to play with. On top of that the temperature change will affect different teams in different ways, because the cars are increasingly temperature sensitive in this era.
Red Bull might have single lap qualifying pace, but Ferrari and Lotus are much better over a race distance, Mercedes also have single lap pace but fade away too over the course of the race. Force India are the leaders of the mid-field, even ahead of McLaren who are not going to have a good time for a while. Perhaps Malaysia will be better for them as the car struggles more in slower speed corners with a short radius - there are not too many of those in Sepang so who knows what is going to happen. Until next time this is farewell from blog HQ.
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