Hamilton holds off Kimi for Hungarian glory

Lewis Hamilton took a brilliantly controlled victory in Hungary today. In many ways it was reminiscent of how Fernando Alonso won in Germany a week ago.

He always had that slight edge as potentially quicker cars behind him tried to have a go at grabbing the win from him. It was in the final sector where Hamilton was just able to keep enough of a gap so no one could touch him in the DRS zone down the start finish straight.

Leading from pole position he immediately got a gap out to Romain Grosjean’s Lotus, but it was never more than a few seconds. It was a hot day in Budapest, conditions that were ideal for the Lotus cars. Grosjean pegged that gap then started to close, getting to within a second.

But Lewis never had to defend from the Frenchman, and as they completed the second pit stops on lap 40 he was three seconds to the good. The challenge was over, well at least from that Lotus.

Ahead of him Kimi Raikkonen was finally into clear air and charging. The Finn, never happy this season without a win shot straight in to the 1.25s as he sought to build a gap.

He had started in fifth and lost a place to Alonso, but through the first pit stops he managed to jump the Ferrari and tagged onto the back of Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull. He was obviously quicker, but despite the Pirelli tyres and the DRS zone this race would not be an overtaking fest.

Unless it rains in Hungary there’s unlikely to be much chance of overtaking. As soon as Vettel pitted Kimi was unleashed and started taking seconds out of everyone else as they battled through traffic.

He got the gap up to 14 seconds, but after 5 laps Lewis had got his tyres working as Kimi’s degraded and the gap began to fall. He boxed instantly and had done just enough to get ahead of his team mate Grosjean.

Exiting alongside, he locked up his right front pushed Grosjean wide into turn one and was through. It was crucial. Three seconds behind Lewis, he pushed as hard as could. With five laps worth of fresher tyres he caught the McLaren easily, but as he admitted over the radio he needed Hamilton’s tyres to fail.

They didn’t, Lewis looked after them superbly as when he needed to, he pulled out a quick lap just to show the Lotus that he still had some pace there.

Hamilton crossed the line less than a second ahead of the Lotus, but the pace that McLaren’s updates have brought was finally demonstrated with his second victory of the year.

He’s still a long way off championship leader Alonso, but took a significant 15 point chunk out of the Spaniard’s lead. Hamilton isn’t out of the title equation yet, and as they head into the summer break he’ll be optimistic having taken pole position and victory in a very assured manner.

The top three in the championship

The top three in the title chase had quiet afternoons. I think Alonso will be quite happy with his afternoons work after finishing fifth and actually extending his lead in the championship over second placed Mark Webber to 40 points.

He’d already said his main focus was to keep Webber behind him, but after they’d made their second stops Webber had turned out in front. Red Bull however, didn’t believe they’d make it to the end on those tyres and pitted Mark with 13 laps left dropping him to eighth and while he was quick at first he became stuck behind Bruno Senna’s Williams and just couldn’t get by.

Sebastian Vettel was urging his team to find a way past Jenson Button, in the end McLaren did it for him by converting him to a three stop strategy which dropped him from challenging for a podium to 6^th by the end, tucked up behind Alonso. Anyway, it was doubtful he’d have stayed ahead of Kimi.

Vettel too went with a three stopper but by the time he made his final stop he was able to come out ahead of Alonso still, and cruised up to the back of Grosjean for third but didn’t have time to make a move, despite lapping 2 seconds quicker than those in front.

The rest of the top 10

Senna came home in seventh in a fine drive. He was always on the pace during the race, in fact for the entire weekend. It was a good performance, and one he needed as we enter the break as he’s been under pressure. Despite being out qualified by his team mate Pastor Maldonado again, he had actually over shadowed him for most of the weekend, and as Maldonado fell down the field due to another penalty Senna maintained position and actually went forwards.

It should be noted that Senna has actually had more points winning results than his team mate, it’s just that Maldonado had that great win in Spain. Senna needs to up his qualifying form and get himself a shining result to keep his seat because he’s in danger of falling off the radar despite his consistency.

Felipe Massa had a bad start, falling from seventh to ninth by the end. He didn’t do much wrong and was actually fairly close to Alonso by the end of the race, but the start cost him and he couldn’t make any passes to progress, much like everyone else.

Nico Rosberg moved up from 13^th on the grid to grab the final point on another disappointing day for Mercedes. After qualifying only 13^th and 17^th their race day turned worse for Schumacher. As they lined up for the start, the lights flashed to abort the start and he switched off his engine.

Everyone else went round for another parade lap as he got pushed into the pits. He then speeded in the pit lane as he took up his position, made an early stop for tyres, got a drive through, tried to go on a one stop but eventually retired after making progress passed the newer teams but little else. Mercedes have a lot of work to do If they want to get anything else from this season.

After the impressive showing in Germany, Sauber had an utterly anonymous day at the races. Neither drive made much progress from a poor qualifying, they just didn’t have the pace.

The title battle

And so now there is a five week break until the next race at Spa in Belgium. Fernando Alonso has built up almost a two win advantage over Mark Webber, but he’ll be slightly concerned, because in full dry conditions, the Ferrari still doesn’t seem to have the pace of at least three teams.

Alonso will work for every point and no doubt grab the odd win along the way, he’s also an expert in damage limitation, but despite his elevated position he knows there’s a marathon of a fight to come.

Red Bull head the constructors championship by a significant margin as their two drives are separated by just two points. Webber has been a bit lacklustre since his Silverstone win and Vettel gives the impression of becoming increasingly frustrated.

But despite this and the various allegations of stretching the rules that have been thrown at them, they are still probably the quickest car in all conditions. With Adrian Newey pushing the envelope at every given opportunity they won’t let Ferrari rest for a tenth of a second.

Two good results later and McLaren are not being written off anymore. At Silverstone they were down and out, now they’re right back in it. Hamilton is only seven points away from being second in the championship and this win will give a lot of encouragement for the rest of the season. He's been mostly brilliant this year and as McLaren develop well, if they can get Button up there consistently too, they’ll have a lot of words to say as the script is written for the title chase.

Despite not having a win to his name this year Kimi Raikkonen remains the dark horse in the championship. He’s only a point behind Hamilton, and actually has the joint second highest amount of podiums this year.

He could have had at least two wins this year, possibly three. If he can get his act together in qualifying, the wins will come easier. He’s certainly driving well, as is Grosjean, Lotus will win a race this year and it could come from either, but for the championship, they’d wanted it to be Kimi who’s a bit more consistent at bringing the car home, they just need him to qualify like Grosjean.

The win could come at Spa, last time Kimi visited there in 2009 he took his fourth win in Belgium. With nine races left it’s still all to play for, the top teams may have more certainty and control over the tyres but there's a lot more story to be told in this epic 2012 season.

Superb win for Alonso as Vettel suffers penalty

Fernando Alonso took his third victory of the year in Germany today in a commanding fashion.

He may have had Sebastian Vettel then Jenson Button hot on his heels for most of the afternoon but he never looked unduly troubled throughout and opened up a lead of 34 points as we reached the halfway point of the season.

After qualifying on pole in the wet qualifying session, Alonso took the lead at the start and apart from pit stops was never headed during the race. He’s said afterwards his rivals were quicker and perhaps they were, but Ferrari has now got their car into a position where Alonso can make the difference to keep it firmly in the number one position.

The only major defence he had to make was from Lewis Hamilton when the McLaren driver was trying to unlap himself, something that intensely annoyed Vettel, but also something which is entirely allowed by the regulations so he can have no real complaints.

Every time either the Red Bull or McLaren got near him, Alonso gently eased out a bit more pace, just enough to fend off any attacks in the DRS zone. This race almost tells the story of the season so far, different rivals coming to challenge him, but Alonso is always there, always fighting near the top and taking the wins when he can.

It was an impressive drive and the rest are going to have to have that consistency and better if they want to hunt him down in the next 10 races.

Vettel’s penalty frustration

Vettel finished second but was given a drive-through penalty of 20 seconds added to his time after taking that place from Jenson Button on the penultimate lap by leaving the limits of the track. He has now been classified as fifth.

Vettel dived to the outside through the DRS zone into turn 4, Button was taking his line which involved moving over towards the kerbs. Now Vettel could have backed off and slotted in behind, but he chose to exceed the track limits and accelerate around the outside so as not to lose momentum and technically I would say passed him off the track.

This has now resulted in the penalty, however, moves like this have happened before countless times and not been penalised so to drop him to fifth seems overly harsh, but an action to just swap the positions round is not open to the stewards.

I guess at some point they have to lay down the rules and give a definitive answer that you can’t do this, but it could be argued why start now when they’ve been lenient before? Unfortunately for Vettel it shows the inconsistency of the stewards when it comes to applying penalties.

Not a good end to the weekend for Seb then, who seemed to be frustrated with a few things including his team mate Mark Webber holding him up in qualifying and Hamilton unlapping himself.

Perhaps Red Bull were even lucky to have started from where they qualified. This morning it was said that their Renault engines were shown to be running a torque map that could be trying to simulate off throttle exhaust blowing, but they got off on a technicality. That’ll be discussed some more no doubt.

Button’s back but Hamilton retires

Jenson Button finally showed up again this weekend. After a number of struggles over recent races, he was back on the pace, at least in the dry and looked to have the pace to beat Alonso with 10 laps remaining. Unfortunately for him his tyres went off and he fell into the clutches of Vettel. Still, it was a good result for him, especially now he has been given second place.  

Unfortunately for McLaren their main points gatherer in the first half of the season suffered a puncture after debris from Felipe Massa’s front wing on the opening lap destroyed what potentially could have been a good afternoon for Lewis Hamilton.

He started poorly, dropping a position but Button showed the pace was there as did he before eventually retiring 10 laps from the end. He’s now over two races wins in points behind Alonso but he can console himself that McLaren are still fighting and there’s still half the season to go. Nothing more can go wrong though.

Kimi ends up with a podium but he won’t be happy

Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus has now been bumped up to third after crossing the line fourth. Kimi showed good pace and often matched the leaders lap times but was already too far away after starting from 10^th.

It was a charging performance from the Finn in the opening half of the race as he made some great moves on Paul di Resta and Michael Schumacher in particular. I doubt he’ll be happy though, only a win will do for Kimi. Romain Grosjean just had a terrible weekend, never looking overly competitive at all.

Sauber jumping to top of midfield fight

The final driver to benefit from Vettel’s penalty is Kamui Kobayashi. Fourth is now his best result to date and it was a great effort from both Sauber drivers, Sergio Perez came up from 17^th on the grid to finish in 6^th, Kamui himself gained eight places from his starting slot.

Their pace also matched the leaders for most of the race once they were free of traffic, it was only their inability to get the tyres working in the wet qualifying that perhaps caused them to lose an even better result.

Sauber are currently the inform midfield team, and if they can continue to develop and look after their tyres as they are doing, then more podiums and perhaps even a winner’s trophy could be on its way to their Swiss base.

Mercedes are beginning to look adrift and need some urgent race pace. Qualifying is still ok, at least in the wet as Michael Schumacher took a second consecutive second row start. But as in Silverstone he quickly fell off the pace of the leaders and it was as much as he could do to maintain seventh, although a searing pace towards the end as he stopped for fresh rubber gave him the fastest lap.

But the Mercedes was not kind on its tyres today, although despite also being on a three stop strategy, Nico Rosberg was able to get a point for 10^th after starting from 22^nd due to a poor Q2 and a grid penalty for changing the gearbox.

However, it’ll be a concern that they no longer seem able to challenge on race day and are even under threat from the midfield squads, especially Sauber and Williams. Much work to be done when we get to the summer break.

Nico Hulkenberg started 4^th finished 9^th, while his Force India team mate Paul di Resta started in the top 10 but fell down to 11^th. It was a similar problem to Mercedes, they had to do a three stopper as others just about made a two stopper work and it was too much to be able to come back through the field. A shame for Hulkenberg as from 4^th, he might have expected a few more points.

Webber drops points

Mark Webber took 8^th and four points to just about maintain second place in the championship. Not a good weekend, he qualified 3^rd but dropped five places due to a gear box change. From then on he was never really a contender and seemed to struggle on the medium compound he got after his first pit stop.

Still he salvaged some points, is still two points ahead of Vettel and will be looking forward to Hungary, a track he won on the last time he was a title contender.

Hungary is only a week away, so any down hearted spirits will be eager to resume battle and go into the summer break with a good result behind them. But come rain or shine, Fernando Alonso is there, on the pace waiting for his opportunities. At the moment he’s not letting anything slip through his grasp.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Webber wins in a great day at Silverstone

There’s a huge sense of anticipation as that whine turns into a roar as the first appearance of a Formula 1 car then bursts into view down the hanger straight and shrieks into Stowe splitting your ears and vibrating straight through you. It’s a spectacular experience.

Mark Webber took a brilliant win in the closing stages of the British Grand Prix, snatching it away from Fernando Alonso in the sprint to the flag. However, my day was one of endurance.

 

After all the problems that the great British summer provided over the past few days for the Silverstone car parks, myself and two friends gathered together on the Saturday night to begin our journey and avoid the traffic chaos that we had no doubt would ensue.

Turns out everyone got in fairly easily in the end, but how were we to know? We set off in a trusty 12 year old Ford Escort estate at 11pm. After a rather slow pit stop on the M1 Toddington services we arrived at Silverstone around 1.30am.

I rather foolishly assumed the car parks would be open early to avoid queues and just get everyone in, but they weren’t to open for another 3 ½ hours. We parked just outside with several hundred other intrepid race goers and “slept” in the car, although my eye was always half open as I watched cars 

forget about the side of the road and simply wait on the dual carriage way.

Sleeping in an estate car you’d think would be just about doable. Turns out, it’s not. As soon as the gates opened though we were in the right place at the right time and shot in to the car park, thankfully not a grass one, not sure the car could have coped with mud. We lined up and we were ready to go watch some cars racing.

We're in!

As soon as you’re in the circuit it’s amazing just how quickly time flies. We wondered in around 6ish, got our programmes, searched the merchandise stalls and then headed round the track towards Stowe where our grandstand seats awaited us. We had a nice view, seeing all of Hanger straight, through Stowe down Vale into Club with the pit entrance in view and the back end of the start finish straight. 

We also had a handily placed big screen to keep us updated with what was going on elsewhere.

Some people believe that because you can’t see everything, it’s pointless to attend a race, but these are people who most likely have never been to a race. The atmosphere, the noise, actually seeing these drivers, their hands dancing on the steering wheel pushing to the edge is truly a sight that should be experienced at least once.

Anyway around 830 the GP3 race was underway, and from then on it’s action all the way. As soon as that was finished the GP2 cars came out for what was probably the best race of the day. Up and coming stars Luiz Razia and Davide Valsecchi battled for the race win, Valsecchi particularly impressive as he came from a long way back to challenge before eventually settling for second.

GP2 Cars

They’re great to watch too as battles continued throughout the race, the cars spitting fire out the back through Stowe as they drop a gear, it’s awesome and it was real wheel to wheel racing where no quarter is given as Esteban Gutierrez demonstrated when he ran wide at Stowe and kept his foot hard on the gas. Unfortunately for him he lost it on a wet patch and clattered into Johnny Ceccotto who flew off into the gravel down near Club corner.

But as fun as that was, after the Porsche race, the drivers parade and the always spectacular Red Arrows display it was time for the main event. The much talked about rain held off for practically the entire day with only slight spitting during the GP3 event. At 12:30 you can hear the whine of a Formula 1 engine being started. It’s always an amazing sound, no matter how many times you may have seen these cars live. 

Stowe is towards the end of the lap these days and there’s a huge sense of anticipation as that whine turns into a roar as the first appearance of a Formula 1 car then bursts into view down the hanger straight and shrieks into Stowe splitting your ears and vibrating straight through you. It’s a spectacular experience.

One by one they all came out for their installation laps before lining up on the grid. This was my fourteenth race and still even now I get butterflies as you hear the cars all roar in unison before the five red lights go out. 

A minute after the start 23 cars are hurtling down Hanger Straight towards me, headed by Alonso, with Webber, Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa close behind as Sebastian Vettel holds off Kimi Raikkonen.

In truth it wasn’t one of the most outstanding of races, but it didn’t take anything away from seeing these drivers pushing their cars to the limit. 

There was still much to enjoy, Romain Grosjean fighting his way up the field after pitting early because of a clash with Paul di Resta which left the Force India driver no choice but to retire.

The battle in the early stages was Schumacher holding onto third ahead of Massa, Vettel, Kimi, Lewis Hamilton, Pastor Maldonado and Sergio Perez.

Into Stowe we had a great pass by Massa on Schumacher, the Mercedes driver trying valiantly to hold on around the outside of Stowe, before a rejuvenated Massa closed the door on him to move up to third.

As strategies played out, Alonso looked majestic out in front of the pack, holding a decent lead over Webber who looked to keep up the fight and not let the Ferrari get too far away but didn’t look like he could take the challenge to the Spaniard.

But after the final pit stops, Alonso took to the soft tyres with just 14 laps to go, while Webber who’d pitted earlier was now on the hards. It was the right way to go, as the gap began to fall. It was noticeable from the stands how fast Webber suddenly began to close, and around the circuit the crowd began to anticipate a fight for the win which just hadn’t looked like coming at all. 

Closer and closer he got, the Red Bull poised to tear around the Ferrari. Lap 48, on the screens Webber tucked himself up behind Alonso coming into the DRS zone down the Wellington straight. He darted to the outside and into Brooklands forced his way past and into the lead producing a wave of cheers from the fans around the rest of the lap; it was a popular victory despite it not being Lewis or Jenson.

He broke clear and was never in trouble as he reeled off the final four laps to take a great win in a fantastic finish to the race to take his second victory of the year, only the second man after Alonso to do that.

It had all looked so set throughout the race that Alonso was about to consolidate his position in the title race, but not if this Australian has anything to do with. Webber moves to just 13 points behind Alonso and really is in 2010 form now which was the last time he won the British Grand Prix, no one should underestimate his title credentials.

Behind Webber and Alonso, Vettel used an early pit stop to secure third place ahead of Massa. In fifth was Kimi who got held up by Schumacher but eventually made it through. Grosjean worked his way up to sixth to make it a solid result for Lotus. 

Schumacher had started third and had really wanted the wet weekend to continue if he was to challenge for victory. But in the dry the Mercedes went backwards and he ended up seventh, overtaking a fading Lewis Hamilton who was eighth towards the end.

Both Mercedes and McLaren will be concerned. Nico Rosberg also went backwards, but from 12^th, which was disappointing. Their dry pace wasn’t great, after qualifying a disappointing eighth, Hamilton would have expected to go forwards, not stay where he was. They tried the same strategy as Alonso, but he was never truly in contention, despite a great battle for the lead with Alonso when he hadn’t made his first stop yet. However he still rewarded the Stowe crowd with a doughnut on the slowing down lap, ever the entertainer.

In ninth the Williams of Bruno Senna made up for another clash by his team mate Maldonado to score two points while Jenson Button in the other McLaren eventually got up to tenth in the closing laps but never looked like he could get any higher.

As the race developed something shiny and round and warm broke through the clouds, and by the end it had turned into a pleasant day. It was a fine race, and one which developed the championship story further, just as it looked like Alonso might get away, he got reigned back in. Hamilton though, will be feeling his chances might be slipping away, but there’s still a long way to go.

Once the race had finished, we departed the grandstand and headed to walk along the start finish straight and see the BBC F1 forum on the stage at Luffield. Saw the Sky team in the pit lane too. But as they brought out Murray Walker to shout GO GO GO, we went as the rain returned. 

With energy levels depleted and a long drive ahead we made our way back to the car park to try squeeze out on the free flowing roads ahead of us. They weren’t free flowing, it took a long time. A long time, but still Silverstone provided a great day and certainly did the best they could given the previous conditions.

Another fine Grand Prix experience, and an interesting story developing in the title race despite the fears that Red Bull may have moved a step ahead in performance it all still looked very close, but was noticable how Red Bull and Ferrari filled the top four positions while McLaren were 8th and 10th as they fell to fourth in the constructors championship.

It could all change in Germany but the boys from Woking look like they need to do a lot of work if they want to keep up in this title race.