You know what it is - you leave civilisation into the wilderness for a while and all hell breaks loose, first Mercedes are sort of almost penalised for their testing faux-pas and banned from the young driver test. Which for a team with less of a development driver program is virtually painless, meaning Ross Brawn wins again - like a devious super-villain. If that wasn't enough I come back from Wales to find that Mark Webber is vanishing from Red Bull to drive Porsche's new LMP1 effort. The blog did try and complete correspondence from the Welsh Eco-village, but the internet in the male cabin was not really functional. Besides there were other things to do in the middle of a forest maintained by a hippy commune - like playing cards with the French. People who could make a technical manual on compost sewage disposal (item 22 on the Eco-tour off the top of my head) sound oddly lyrical; there was also the new sport of 'Extreme Table Giant Jenga' which through brutally manipulating the laws of physics thoroughly counts as extreme. Other than those highlights the expedition revealed that the population of Wales is made up predominantly of sheep - but CAT is surrounded by Murderous-Vampiric-Super-Zombie-Sheep, which may or may not be able to fly. The things you discuss under the Welsh night sky... and clouds and rain...
But I have returned to this world, which in some senses is a shame - because the real world is all too often disappointing, and Wales and the team was certainly not so. Anyway this part of the internet is not a continental sheep based travel guide - this is the coverage of the British GP which still is taking place underneath all the announcements and judgements, and the aftermath of the events of Le Mans this time last week. There are some rather mixed faces up and down the grid, as the same four cars are dominating the top four places, the consensus is that the tyres are responsible. However at the moment I'm sure the lack of bacon at CAT was also down to the tyres, and the global energy crisis - also Pirelli's fault. How did this translate into qualifying, well on a fast track (before the new area section - which by the way was also caused by the tyres), it mostly fell as expected... with the odd surprise.
Qualifying
The majority of the practice sessions were wet - if the race was in the the vicinity of Eco-world than the whole thing would be underwater (also Pirelli's fault) which involved Massa visiting the barrier for the third consecutive event. This was as much as I was able to gleam from a brief news report in a Little Chef breakfast stop at the early hours of the morning somewhere in the vicinity of the Wales/England border. So I came into the recorded version of qualifying completely in the dark, and turned out that didn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things.
Q1 for once started with a car actually leaving the garage at the beginning of the session - belonging in this case to Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg it wasn't going to trouble the higher end of the timings. Lotus followed the second of the Saubers out sparking from both cars more so than we'd become accustomed to, despite this they went to the top. At the time Hamilton was waving to the crowd from the pit-lane, which I'm not sure is the fastest way around the track but like it mattered in the end as the Mercedes driver went on track and then went fastest. Another weekend and another 1-2 for the silver cars, but what about the other two silvery ones, well it was another challenging day at the office languishing in the middle of the pack.
A whole new level of disappointment was welling at Ferrari where Massa was in the Q1 relegation zone and Fernando not too many places further forward - a late improvement for Felipe put the red team 14th and 15th... Meaning both of the remaining relegation places were up for grabs, one of which belonged firmly to Esteban Gutierrez. The second however was under more contention internally within Williams highlighting their lack of form and pace - somehow I foresee Pirrelli being blamed for that too. In the end Maldonado usurped Bottas on his final lap.
Off to Q2 we went and at this point in the recording I'd created a pint of tea, a construct that actually exists beyond these walls on the edge of Snowdonia near a giant power generating mountain - the things you are introduced to outside of blogHQ. Red Bull opened the session with the exiting Webber, probably should reconsider heading to sportscar racing - having flipped the last machine he raced in at that level. Despite the Australian's best efforts those folk from Mercedes were at it again dominating the pace at the front of the field... until Vettel came out and went fastest.
As always it is the other end of the top ten that is more closely contested in this part of the weekend, where the battle to avoid relegation and make it into Q3. Once more Force India were the class of the mid-field - Sutil put the car in third, for a little while anyway before falling a few places, then Ricciardo spying that newly opened seat at Red Bull went 4th. Not sure that is a decent plan - after Alguersuari started doing rather well he was removed from the line-up from the next season. Then again STR were in a phase of culling drivers for laughs at the time, things have more gravitas at the moment. All this came at the expense of Ferrari and McLaren who were having more difficulties - Massa, Button and Perez all in relegation and Alonso on the very cusp of following them. Yet the Spaniard refused to lose out and made it through.
One session to go and a big mug of tea was followed up by a donated muffin, living the life of extreme exuberance at blog HQ - happier than a good spin on the treadmill of happiness, although that was diluted by the fact it played 'bibbity bobbity' which by a long way not a blogHQ anthem. This time Ricciardo went out first and set a very beatable lap, and for a brief moment there was a car that wasn't silver or driven by that German bloke at the front as Webber lead from Di Resta.... then normal service resumed with Hamilton out front. The majority of the top ten filed in an orderly fashion, but I was eating a muffin at the time... mmm cake based substances. Anyway it was time for the mid session break while tyres were changed and probably charged with a growing list of offences, including those missing propeller blades from the wind turbine exhibit and the unsustainable nature of baked beans.
Round two in reality was just a extension of the battle between Red Bull and Mercedes with the former throwing the first punch - it was slightly stronger than their first effort but the infallible German marque merely shrugged it off. First Nico set a strong time to go fastest then Hamilton destroyed it to a margin of over four tenths of a second. Vettel and Webber locked out the second row for Red Bull. Everyone was at least half a second back with that queue lead by Paul Di Resta on form again... though his car was found to be underweight and moved to the back. This moves Ricciardo up to the lead of the mid-field and the Red Bull shop window - Sutil qualified the car 7th ahead of the two Lotus drivers. Right at the bottom of the standings we find Alonso summing up how bad Ferrari's weekend was going and that Fernando joined the forefront of the Pirelli persecution parade - but there are bigger, greater forces afoot other than the world's favourite tyre company.
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
I'm back and so are the points, there is the temptation to award all the points to Wales and the events within, considering it did run across the start of the race weekend - but if I did so than no-one else would score anything. So here goes the rest points from the first part of the British GP qualifying session.
- 10pts - Daniel Ricciardo - Another very strong performance in the STR although the mid-field lead was an inherited position
- 8pts - Paul Di Resta - Being 1.5kg underweight can't take away from defeating the likes the entire Lotus,Ferrari and McLaren teams
- 6pts - Lewis Hamilton - Because that was just ruddy fast.
- 5pts - Giedo Van Der Garde - For having only one lap and managing to avoid being last on the grid
- 4pts - Romain Grosjean - Beating his team-mate in the other car while running an alternate setup
- 3pts - Adrian Sutil - Making it two Force Indias ahead of three of the major teams
- 2pts - Lotus - Because sparks look cool
- 1pt - Wales - you done good
Looking Ahead To Tomorrow
This time around we haven't had the chance to build up to this race due to having too much fun in the valleys and the sheep laden hills of Wales. Far to easily distracted by Extreme Picnic Table Giant Jenga, and a building that resembles a miniaturised crystal dome. But here in the real world, it is race time - one of the things that helps disperse the darkness of being back in reality. Easing the re-integration is the British GP the most traditional of the traditional tracks with some of the most immense corners in existence and also some of the most dubious circuit modifications. But the problem with this sort of lap is that is makes the racing occasionally less entertaining as there is generally one line, and one line only to follow. That theory has been proven wrong before and I can all but hope this can be one of those events because there are some factors at play this time round.
Firstly Di Resta now starts at the back in a very fast car, as well as Ferrari, Lotus and McLaren all being further back then they wanted to be - all on those tyres people seem to be laying more hate into this weekend. Especially from the Ferrari camp - well Alonso, and there is the dual DRS on the Wellington and Hangar straights. All in all, I can see a great race unfolding on the first full day back at the helm of Blog HQ - so until tomorrow Au Revoir
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