Well Canada you tried, and it was an amicable effort - we had some fun battles although most of them were merely blown out of the water through the at times farcical power of a dual DRS system with single activation. I may have missed something but outside the opening couple of laps I didn't spot a overtake completed that was not at the end of either of the two DRS areas, into the final chicane or into turn 1. Today we also learned that all those people who spend millions on research and development in the aero departments doesn't mean all too much - as there was disproportionate amount carbon fibre lost versus actual time loss. Even a wonky rear wing missing all manner of lower edge aero pieces was able to go quite quickly until things got in the way later. It may not have had the demolition derby style of racing involved in our race at Monaco, but finally we had an event when cars could go as fast as they wanted throughout the race, not pandering around on disintegrating tyres. The outcome of such a development was a frightening display of dominance - only five cars completed the race on the same lap, world champions Button and Raikkonen were even lapped. Heck even here, five hours ahead of Canada in time difference, I think I might have been lapped.
Coming into the race there was a lot anticipation building throughout the day - with cars out of position on a track with close walls and little space for error - and in the end today's race was far from a disappointment and was one of the better rounds of the season. There was just a large hint of inevitability every time one car came close to the back of another one as long as DRS was involved - a telling few laps when DRS was taken offline under yellows saw cars trapped in position seemed to be a prime indicator on the dependence on the rear wing flap. So lets review what happened in this evening's race.
The Race
After yesterdays qualifying session there were two grid penalties added for Raikkonen and Ricciardo who received 2-place grid drops for lining up in the wrong part of the pit lane after the restart. Oddly due to the way the penalties were ordered both drivers were only docked a single position on the actual grid... sometimes it is weird the way things work out.
Off the line Sebastien made a seamless start and vanished - he was never seen again - Hamilton was safe in second while Bottas had a car pass him either side as Rosberg and Webber dealt with the Williams before turn one. Almost miraculously not a single piece of carbon fibre was shed in the concertina of turns one and two - in fact there was a lack of any contact whatsoever. It was clear that the speed Valtteri had in the damp was completely gone in the warm and dry conditions, the Finn resisted Alonso for a few corners but the Ferrari is a vastly superior car in the dry and out paced the Williams on traction. As a result there was a five car breakaway group at the front of the field, although Vettel at the very front had broken further away into a different universe.
Bottas now had a bit of queue forming behind him lead by Jean Eric Vergne - however by this point the DRS window had been activated and once Vergne was in position he was able to swoop round the outside of turn one using the extra momentum. This left Sutil next in line to take overtake the struggling Williams - the Force India driver wanted to try something a little different to the straight forward DRS passing, and made a was alongside at the turn in point to turn three. Sutil took a little too much curb to avoid binning the Williams, and span the car in avoidance, but after an excellently executed 360 spin pointed the car in the right direction and continued with Ricciardo and Raikkonen taking to the grass to miss the spinning German. Adrian rejoined in 13th ahead of Maldonado - as it turned out this was not the safest place to be - Sutil's record with Williams cars got markedly worse as the Venezuelan drove into the back of the Force India at the hairpin. Sutil spent the remainder of the back straight losing pieces of the wing and it looked a little wonky... the third time this season that car has been rammed.
You'd think being so far out in front you'd have a much smaller chance of hitting anything - well Vettel decided to push the limits a little too close to the edge and bounced the car off the wall on the exit of turn four. Fortunately for the German Bloke Red Bull suspensions are made of sterner stuff and the car remained undamaged. Out of all the cars out of position it seemed that only Massa was working his way forwards, rounding up Perez in the DRS zone at the end of the front straight, before catching up to Raikkonen who was having difficulties with passing Ricciardo. That STR machine was quite quick in a straight line even without the aid of DRS, but with the additional pressure of the Ferrari joining the train Raikkonen suddenly found a space around Ricciardo leaving the Australian to deal with Massa.
For a lot of people pit-stop window has opened - except Di Resta wasn't really listening to that and was staying out, neither was Grosjean but wasn't able to carry the same sort of speed on the tyres as the Force India. Oddly just after Rosberg's stop Mercedes gave him a call, to inform that the tyres were in the 'danger zone' - add some shades and the top gun persona would be complete. This allowed Webber and Alonso to catch up to Nico for another little infield duel. Another of these duels was forming further back as Massa following a stop was back to passing people - easily dealing with Esteban Gutierrez... but then there was Sutil. At this point in the race (barring anyone trying to pass a Torro Rosso) all passes in the DRS zone were indefensible - Sutil wasn't up for playing that game and fought the Ferrari hard, often leaving the bare minimum of space. Felipe tried several times round the outside of turn one but as the Force India covered the inside line, but Adrian closed off the lane before turn two and held position.
Some of those staying out were beginning to lose pace - Button and Raikkonen were over two seconds slower than the race pace. Kimi pitted but a rear jack failure cost the team several seconds and positions dropping Raikkonen out of the points - as for Jenson, he was easily caught and passed by the Sutil, Massa battle, and decided enough was enough and pitted the car too. Aside from Sutil and Feilipe almost banging wheels down the front straight as Adrian continued to defend strongly not too much was going on in a stable middle phase of the race. Teams were assessing tyre wear in determining whether one of two stops would be the idea solution.
But a battle was forming as Top Gun Rosberg had two bogeys on his tail and was Webber's danger zone - Mark was able to deploy the DRS wing aileron and breeze past Nico while Alonso charged the KERs afterburner on the front straight. An instance where a dual DRS zone cost a driver two places and was completely defenceless to both. Just as a reminder Vettel was still out front and had started lapping people, everyone - so much lappery, he lost a little time when coming past the a Raikkonen/Bottas battle, but the lead was so great it didn't even matter. There were also unsubstantiated reports that Vettel had lapped the entire Audi team at the Le Mans test thousands of miles away.
After the German Bloke lapped them - Raikkonen and Bottas engaged in a little Finnish face off, Kimi being the second car to try the inside of the Williams in turn three, this time both cars went through the chicane two wide and no-one ended up in the wall. Further back Webber illustrated that lapping people was not going as well on that side of the garage as Van Der Garde cut across the Red Bull in the hairpin damaging Webber's front wing. Now here's the interesting part after the damage, Mark then went faster, in fact went fastest - and in other news Van Der Garde is now in charge of officially redesigning front wings. Yet the FIA rewarded the Dutchman's promotion with a 10s stop and go penalty, but he was not to be disheartened by this and worked on his next aerodynamic design. Giedo enlisted the help of Nico Hulkenberg to dislodge one of the supporting pillars of the Caterham wing in the final chicane. This new design didn't work as the wing fell off and jammed itself under the floor of the car forcing a retirement, Hulkenberg also suffered suspension failure from the contact and had to retire as well.
Alonso was stating to mount a bit of a charge, and had caught up to Van Der Garde's first project - Webber's reshaped Red Bull - and because of the improved front wing - it took both of the DRS zones to defeat the Australian. The next car on Fernando's list was Hamilton for the final podium position, a few seconds down the road. In other news, Paul Di Resta made a call to the team to make his first pit-stop on lap 57... people have spent the entire year complaining about poor durability and a lone Scotsman managed 57 laps on the same set, where teams had estimated 35-40 laps on compound. As a result Paul had managed to sneak up from a poor, and angered qualifying into the top ten, safely by a few places as well. Life was not so enjoyable for the other Force India, after being hit by Maldonado, battling hard with Massa there was another problem for Sutil. He was being lapped (which today was not uncommon) because the Hamilton, Alonso battle was wanting through. Thus lead to a problem, his car was not slow enough for the pair to coast past easily but was holding them up and was not quite so willing to yield. After receiving several blue flags Sutil relented, but was handed a drive through penalty for the trouble.
Because of the issue lapping Sutil, Hamilton now had Fernando in very close company, making a pass under DRS on the front straight mere millimetres from making wheel to wheel contact - and the Ferrari driver executed some rather impeccable timing when dealing with the Mercedes. Hamilton tried to retake the place on the following lap on the the back straight and but Alonso defended, easing Lewis wide in the braking zone - learning from Van Der Garde, Alonso relieved Hamilton of some shards of carbon from the front wing. Before the battle could continue Gutierriez put his Sauber in the turn one wall bringing out yellow flags. Under the yellows DRS is disabled, which due to the system having one detection zone amputated two overaking zones for the sake of a localised accident. In this start, cars lost all the ability to overtake one another, Raikkonen for example was able to resist Massa's attacks in the bottom end of the points with comparative ease. Yet when the flags came in, Felipe virtually drove around the Lotus - although Raikkonen's tyres were rather older at this point.
Modern timing is not entirely sure what time Vettel crossed the line, the car was so far ahead a new type of maths needed to be invented to figure out where the car was, but the German Bloke racked up another dominant victory and further extends the lead in the championship. Alonso finished second ahead with Hamilton completing the podium, while Webber and his Van Der Garde inspired wing design made scored more points for the Red Bull team. Top Gun Rosberg survived the danger zone to be the last car on the lead lap in 5th place - which in itself sums up the lead Vettel had, and even Nico was only 12 seconds away from being lapped himself... Vergne was the first of the cars one lap down in 6th, after potentially one of the most anonymous drives of the season, if it wasn't for the timing system tracking them Vergne could have gone missing and no-one would have noticed. Di Resta one-stopped his way to 7th ahead of a recovering Massa. Raikkonen and Sutil completed problematic days and finish at the bottom end of the points. As for Bottas - well in reality the Williams is a poor car and was demolished on dry pace finishing the race 14th, ahead of Ricciardo and I have no idea how the latter ended up back there either...
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
Oddly after what was a rather good race without the intervention of carnage like Monaco, it was hard to assign bonus points, but the same people are being noticeable and are awarded accordingly.
- 25pts - Paul Di Resta - In a week where tyre complaints have reached a peak to defy the odds and score points from 17th on the grid and survive a 57 lap stint
- 18pts - Jean Eric Vergne - An undercover performance reminiscent of Aguersuari in the same machine at this track in 2011 yet won the mid-field battle, and the first car one lap down.
- 15pts - Sebastien Vettel - An extreme display of dominance, lapping everyone and everything in sight, only five cars on the lead lap at the end of the race.
- 12pts - Fernando Alonso - Refuses to be beaten and made the podium from 6th on the grid
- 10pts - Felipe Massa - Made several passes earlier and embarked on an good battle with Sutil
- 8pts - Adrian Sutil - For a sweet impromptu 360 and for his part in the duel with Massa
- 6pts - Lewis Hamilton - Kept the Mercedes on the podium without despite braking issues and an early partial DRS failure
- 4pts - Giedo Van Der Garde - Awarded for his new role as freelance aerodynamic engineer which actually started in Monaco with arranging Maldonado's wing
- 2pts - Top Gun Rosberg - For not being lapped
- 1pt - Valtteri Bottas - May not have an actual point, so here's a bonus point
The Penalties Championship
There were a few penalties handed out today, and a couple from yesterday that were issued after the post had been released onto the internet:
- Daniel Ricciardo - 2 place grid drop - for being out of line in the pit lane in Q2
- Kimi Raikkonen - 2 place grid drop - for being out of line in the pit lane in Q2
- Pastor Maldonado - drive through penalty - for being the latest driver to ram Sutil
- Adrian Sutil - drive through penalty - for deciding blue flags are optional
- Giedo Van Der Garde - 10s stop/go penalty - for redesigning Webber's front wing
- Giedo Van Der Garde - 5 place grid penalty - for redesigning his own front wing and Hulkenberg's suspension in the process
- Caterham - 2,000 EUR fine for personell crossing the pit lane in front of Ricciardo
Penalty Points Championship
To complete the trifecta of championships here is the final table to be added to from Montreal:
- DRS - Was not entirely well implemented this time round, two zones and a single activation point was always a little silly.
- ITV Sport - How many ad breaks do you realistically need... seriously
Looking forwards to Britain
That time of the season has rolled around once more where the championship arrives back home soil for the British GP at Silverstone - a circuit that hosted the first ever F1 race back in 1950 remains on the calendar, and before the last 'upgrade' had a largely similar configuration. The British GP may not be famous for hosting some of the greatest races in the world on a regular basis, although it has thrown up some remarkable surprises in the late 90s and the monsoon race of 2008 was a spectacular event. But it remains a truly iconic event, for it's tradition, it's speed and challenging nature featuring corners that have become renowned the world over. To the point where, when designing the new Austin circuit the Maggots/Becketts sequence was selected as one of the most important corners in Motorsport to replicate on their layout. Every corner from the exit of luffields up to the entry to vale on the other side of the lap is spectacular, admittedly the new addition to the track has been added purely for the practicality of the new pit lane. The new corners that have come with it are a little unnecessary, especially the double hairpins... but you can't have everything, most 'upgrades' tend to devalue new circuits. A mauled bus stop chicane at Spa and the redesigned Hokkenheim are prime examples of that process, yet the changes can take nothing away from the fact that the British GP is more than just another race - it is an event. But in the mean-time blog HQ has to prepare for the gruelling challenge of viewing the entire 24hrs of Le Mans throughout the night, past dawn and into the morning. So if I survive my 5th Le Mans all nighter ther blog will be back for the British GP
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