Last weekend saw the first outside broadcast of the season, where I venture from the common haunt of Blog HQ and sit in front of a different TV... which when you think about it suddenly becomes notably less astonishing. But as a result there isn't really the time to complete a thorough and lengthy review, because as you might have guessed - painstaking compiling all those spelling errors, inaccuracies and general nonsense does take a long time. In some cases a substantial write up can take up to five hours to complete - even if most of it looks as if it could be composed by a drunken toddler (not that I've gone round getting toddlers drunk to confirm the comparison). So in the case of an outside broadcast or as may likely be the case later on in the season - delayed broadcasts - it isn't possible to spend that amount of time writing things up. Furthermore if I tried to cobble together something in a smaller, rushed timescale the result would be more pointless than Bernie's qualifying ideas.
Which leads us in a roundabout way to this post - which is a bit of an experiment, and will probably be tailored over the coming races before it reaches a passable standard. Instead of rambling on about everything, I shall just declare the bonus points awards from the race so that the points table (which I know does actually need to be built this year...) remains intact.
The Race
In short we had another decent one, with a start which saw the pole man falter... and then get rammed by a Finn this time, and battles throughout the field. The new concept of a wider range of compounds did create a variety of strategies, and encourage more track action as those strategies would occasionally converge. In addition to varied tyre choices, we had a race full of aerodynamic variability - both Red Bulls decided to shed a front wing endplate, while Force India took a more aggressive approach with Perez in losing 50% of the front wing in a collision with Sainz. Again Haas proved to be impressive - well the one with Grosjean driving anyhow (Gutierrez survived a Bahrain GP without flipping but broke down instead). But some of that performance can be explained by qualifying in the coveted 9th place grid slot - the first position with a free tyre choice. Alonso's replacement scored McLaren's first point of the year after Button's car also broke down... at least his made the grid unlike Jolyon Palmer and Sebastian Vettel whose machinery died on the formation lap.
In the end Rosberg won again - and again it was mostly down to Hamilton making a mess of the start. Kimi finished second and was outwardly ecstatic about it on the podium... and by ecstatic I mean the Finn had an expression displaying about as much enthusiasm as anyone watching qualifying. Lewis finished on the podium, showing that even when a Mercedes has the crap knocked out of it in the first corner and starts dropping carbon fibre all over the place... it is still faster than most other cars.
The Points
Moving swiftly on to the points scoring part of the agenda, and in an entertaining race these are the winners from the Bahrain GP
- 25pts - Stoffel Vandoorne - Brought in as a reserve driver for Alonso's crash in Australia, the Belgian collected McLaren's first points of the season and passed a number of people in the process.
- 18pts - Pascal Wehrlein - A Manor fighting, and passing other cars on merit, what magic is this. Pascal using the upgraded package the team have with the Mercedes engine and Williams gearbox to the full. It will only take one slightly mad day and points will be on the cards for the first time since Bianchi's legendary efforts in Monaco. Efforts which saved the team and allowed them to become what they are today.
- 15pts - Romain Grosjean - Haas may have had some luck with Grosjean's car thus far, a free pit stop in Australia and prime grid position from a tyre choice perspective in Bahrain. But even considering that, a 5th place result is still very impressive, the car seems to be head-midfield material and Grosjean is getting results out of that.
- 12pts - Kevin Magnussen - Was forced to start from the pit-lane after the stewards threw the book at him earlier in the weekend. But despite this, and an underpowered car the Dane came to within 17s of claiming the final championship point.
- 10pts - Daniil Kvyat - Fell victim somewhat of the questionable qualifying format, but made a strong recovery during the race.
- 8pts - Kimi Raikkonen - Avoided the melee at the first corner and after a poor start - began he recovery drive carving his way back to second
- 6pts - Marcus Ericsson - Some really good defensive driving late in the race and feisty racing with team-mate Nasr. On the opening lap the two had a bit of a go at each other and the battler resumed later.
- 4pts - Nico Rosberg - A 100% win streak thus far and five in a row now - could this mean that we might get a year long challenge between the two Mercedes cars... we can but hope.
- 2pts - Valtteri Bottas - A brilliant start... up until the point where he crashed into a mercedes that is...
- 1pt - Fernando Alonso - The man might not be driving, but he has plenty of time to deliver a verbal smack down to Sky's Johnny Herbert - and gets a point for it
- -1pt - Williams - Managing to drop from a reasonable double podium after the opening lap to an 8th and 9th place finish... bit of a balls up that one wasn't even without Bottas' penalty.
- -1pt - Bernie - Giving Bernie negative bonus points is starting to become a habit now but after the comments pre-qualifying he just kept going claiming that 'drivers shouldn't talk'
There have been two reasonable good races thus far, and I know a lot of people would like to see that continue through into the next race in Shanghai. I kind of expect it to be the sort of circuit that falls into Mercedes hands - as it was the source of their first victory in their return. But as we have seen thus far the start is very important, and Mercedes haven't got that quite right yet, so there might be room for an upset.
Elsewhere the middle of the pack remains closely bunched up and provides most of the entertainment, more so with McLaren, Haas, and Manor joining the party near the end of the points. So we might have something to look forward to in a couple of weeks.
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