Wednesday 28 November 2012

Sebastian Vettel: A deserving Champion



Sebastian Vettel  is the 2012 Formula 1 world champion, and yes he thoroughly deserves it. There are many cases to be made for other drivers as to why they might deserve it more because they haven’t had the best car or they got taken out at races or their team elected to screw up their pit stops for an extra challenge.

But the fact is the guy with the most points wins and that means through all the different circumstances and challenges that have been presented to each driver every race, that driver with his team have dealt with and overcome those obstacles and utilised their package the best.

Over simplified it may be, but you can only deal with what you have, and if you get a good hand it’s about using it to the best of your ability.

Vettel in 2011 had a car that could dominate and he exploited that to its fullest potential, I don’t believe anyone else can push a perfect car to the extremes he can. In 2012 it was all change, gone were the exhaust blown diffusers, the trick device that Red Bull had previously designed their car around.

And yes at first it wasn’t brilliant for Vettel. Only one win and two other podiums from the first 10 races saw him getting frustrated, with slightly petulant radio calls to his engineers to help him out more giving him the appearance of a spoilt child, too used to the races falling for him.

In Malaysia his gesture to Narain Karthikeyan in the HRT was of someone not really accustomed to struggling as he suffered a puncture due to contact with the HRT’s front wing. He pulled over too quickly on the Indian, but he didn’t see it like that.

These things gave the impression he was not used to working for his results, which of course is utter rubbish, 2011 was far closer in the actual races than it appeared and let’s not forget 2010, but to the outside it could well have seemed here was someone not able to deal with being in a fight again.

His team mate Mark Webber was a factor once more, with the blown diffusers out of action Webber seemed more capable of extracting the performance from a car not working as expected. In fact the Australian seemed to be his 2010 self and had an extra win over Vettel as the season turned to the second half.

At this point Vettel lay 44 points behind Fernando Alonso, that’s nearly two race wins adrift. In that time he had taken two no scores, one of which was a certain victory in Valencia due to an alternator failure where he threw his gloves off in frustration. Despite this he remained calm, he has complete trust in his team, and they paid him back.

In the next 10 races he scored 7 podiums including 4 wins. The thing is despite the Red Bull not being up to scratch at the start, particularly in qualifying it still had great race pace and Vettel still got results out of it to leave him in contention. Alonso was always worried about the threat Vettel posed once the Red Bull could get back it’s qualifying pace.

And once it did, once the rear end was sorted and mimicked the blown diffuser concept (although not to the same effect), Vettel extrapolated as much speed as could be had. Four consecutive wins from Singapore to India, with the final three the very definition of Red Bull’s race plan. Qualify at the front, get a gap to nullify the DRS zone and control the race.

It’s what Vettel does best. Unlike Webber who faded a little, Vettel can extract the maximum speed when the car calls for a driving style that will access this speed, changing his style to suit the car.

These were impressive drives, but perhaps what will be remembered is that he didn’t just clear off in the three races that followed. He still had to fight hard for this title, especially against someone like Alonso. 

Problems and circumstances meant he had to charge through the field on two occasions. Vettel is more than capable of fighting with the best of them and not just winning from the front.

In Abu Dhabi, in truth I thought he looked clumsy at first, clipping Bruno Senna then nearly losing control behind the safety car, but still from last to third place is a good day in anyone’s book. And the calmness and assured overtaking he displayed as he fought back from near disaster in Brazil as he was spun to the back of the field was a drive truly worthy of a world champion.

So yes, Alonso may not have had the best car, but for a long time in the middle portion of the season particularly it was easily a podium capable car, but Vettel didn’t have the fastest car either for a fair portion of the season and he too was able to grind out the results when needed. McLaren had the best car overall, they just screwed up a fair few times.

You can only play the hand you’re dealt with, Alonso played his to perfection, but so did Vettel, it just so happens Vettel had an ace and he used it. You get what you’re given sometimes and it’s up to you to maximise those opportunities, which he did.

You can’t argue with someone who has had the strength to fight a title winning campaign in three consecutive seasons, only the third man after Fangio and Schumacher to achieve it, and at only 25 years old too, there’s more to come. He’s a thoroughly deserving champion.


all photo's taken from autosport.com

Sunday 25 November 2012

Vettel charges to title as Button wins Brazilian thriller



Sebastian Vettel is the youngest triple world champion in Formula 1 history, and certainly after this race no one can deny that he richly deserves it. It was an incredible come back drive after everything had looked lost for him in the tricky condition at Interlagos.

After being squeezed towards the wall off the start line from 4th, he backed off and ended up in the pack as they approached turn 4. First of all he owes Kimi Raikkonen a debt of gratitude who left his braking late and jinked out onto the run off to avoid hitting the back of the Red Bull.

If you look at the replays, Vettel was so close to disaster, his rear wing would have been ripped off and it would’ve been race over. As it was he went into a different accident.

He went to the apex of turn 4 but Bruno Senna’s Williams was already there tipping Vettel round which launched Senna over his right rear wheel. Ordinarily that could have been wheel off, but not this time, this was Vettel’s day.

As the rest of the field found their way by, Vettel kept the car straight as he continued backwards. Quickly flicking his Red Bull round, he got back on it and soon attached himself to the back of the pack again.

He was in devastating form and carved his way back into the top 10 in no time. In fact as the conditions worsened and cars were stopping for intermediate tyres on lap 11 Vettel had Alonso in his sights.

On lap 22 the safety car was called to clear a lot of debris from the track, it closed the pack up, but Vettel was already fairly close to Alonso, if anything it hindered him as Kamui Kobayashi managed to squeeze by followed a few laps later by a brave move from Alonso’s team mate Felipe Massa to come round the outside into turn 4. He now was 7th, but it was still good.

As everyone switched back to dry tyres, the rain began to fall again, Vettel’s radio was malfunctioning and he came into the pits and got dries put on again instead of inters. He had to come back in, but yet again he made the progress he needed and was soon back ahead of the likes of Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher as the weather continued to add spice to the action.

Alonso was now in second, but it made no difference to Vettel, he had the position in 6th and on lap 69 as Paul di Resta smashed into the wall just before the finishing straight, the safety car was called and that was it. Sebastian Vettel cruised over the line in now soaking conditions to confirm his third consecutive driver’s title.

A fantastic recovery when it had all looked so bad an hour and a half earlier. A lot has been said already about Vettel only winning because of Red Bull having the faster car at the end of the season. But that’s just to simplify things really.

Vettel was up near the front all year and when the opportunity came, as perhaps only he can, he exploited it fully. I’m not sure anyone can drive quite as fast as Sebastian when the car is perfect.

And let’s not forget his lost win in Valencia when he was dominating or the lost points in Italy through alternator failures or the fantastic recovery drives in Abu Dhabi and here in Brazil. Vettel is a truly deserving three time world champion.

It could have all been so different

Fernando Alonso will look back at this season, and I hope he believes like most others that it was one of the great demonstrations of how to go about constructing an almost perfect year of motor racing.

Yet again he qualified poorly, but that’s all the car has allowed him to do for most of the year. But as always he targeted the podium and very rarely does he not succeed in getting there. At the beginning of lap 2, Alonso was in world championship winning position; Vettel was nowhere and the Spaniard had already worked his way up to third with a nice double overtake on Webber and Massa into turn 1.

It could have been his, but as the rain continued to fall he ran wide at turn 1 to let Nico Hulkenberg through into third, and Vettel was already slicing his way into the points. By lap 11 as they changed tyres it was already looking too much, but as always this year he was there picking up the pieces and it so almost came off.

After Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton collided and Massa let him through, he was into 2nd, but it just wasn’t enough. I think Fernando has looked a little tentative over the last two races, he’s been out paced by Massa and I think he knew it was going away from him when for so long he really believed it was his.

And it could have been, but for two crashes at the start of the Belgian and Japanese races he would be world champion, but Vettel can point to races where he lost points too, as can Hamilton. This is motor racing. We also should not forget that despite the desperate image built up this year, Ferrari have actually finished second in the constructors, and their car was podium capable from a quarter of the way through.

That takes nothing away from Alonso though, he would have truly deserved his third title; he’s scored 13 podiums, more than anyone else and he has galvanised the team like no one else has. They’re all behind him and working for him because he’s a truly inspirational figure head for the team and I’ve no doubt that Alonso’s day will come again sooner rather than later.

Jenson Button bookends 2012


Even without the drama of the title decider this race was a real thriller in the rain. It was a proper epic with drama all the way down the field and the battle for the lead typified this. The McLaren’s had locked out the front row with Hamilton on pole by less than a tenth.

They got away well at the start and there followed a hard battle between them as Button tracked Lewis, passed him, was re-passed then finally stayed ahead. Catching them steadily though was Hulkenberg who looked like he was about to produce a giant killing act.

As everyone including Lewis dived for the pits to switch to inters when the rain began to fall, Button and Hulkenberg continued to fight it out on slicks and actually built up a 40 second lead over the rest of the field. On lap 18 Nico made his move, exiting the final corner he used all his KERs energy to slipstream Button and pass him into turn 1.

Their lonely battle at the front was brought to an end when the safety car came out. Hamilton was back in contention and soon got ahead of Button, and began to hunt Hulkenberg, much as he did to Vettel last week.

Lap 48 and Hulkenberg slipped up, catching a damp white line into turn 7 and half spinning. He caught it well but it was enough for Hamilton to get by. It didn’t end there though, Hulkenberg was in great form and clung onto Lewis as they approached backmarkers 7 laps later.

The Force India dived down the inside into turn 1 but was on the wet, the back end got away from him and slid into the side of the McLaren destroying Lewis’ left front. He was out, Nico who had driven heroically dropped down the field, amplified by the stewards handing him a drive through penalty, he still managed to finish 5th but it could have been so much more. Hamilton was out, his McLaren career over.

Jenson Button had been hovering not far behind and picked up the lead, he cruised to the finish to earn his third win of the year. If there had been no safety car it would have been interesting to see if Button could have got back past Hulkenberg, but whatever all three of them drove a great final race of 2012.

Another lost win for Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton can justifiably claim to have driven a fantastic season. He’s lost a lot of points, mostly through no fault of his own, something which perhaps influenced his decision to leave McLaren to join Mercedes for next season.

Whatever the circumstances though he wanted to leave McLaren on a high, this is a team which have nurtured him since he was 11, they brought him into Formula 1 and took him to world championship glory.

It was a sad way to end, but he got a standing ovation when he returned to the pits and it was no less than he deserved. I think he’s driven one of his best years, especially after the shambles that 2011 was.

Lewis deserved more than he got out of 2012, but I believe he’ll win races for Mercedes next year. He’s that kind of driver. Whether he can get the team around him in the way Alonso has with Ferrari is another matter. We’ll see how that plays out over the coming seasons, and how he handles the situation if the team can’t deliver.

Schumacher’s final hurrah

A special mention to the legend that is Michael Schumacher who drove a fine final race to score Mercedes first points in 6 races. Qualifying 13th he suffered a puncture and was lapped but the safety car allowed him back onto the lead lap.

From then on as the rain intensified he found himself fighting for points and eventually claimed 7th as he showed his fighting spirit one last time. As ever with Schuey, he never gave up. It wasn’t the end many had hoped for and obviously his years at Mercedes weren’t the success they might have been.

But he showed enough speed and fight to show that despite his 43 years, he could mix it with this generation of stars and if he’d been given the opportunity would easily have taken another win and it certainly takes nothing away from the success he had in his first career.

Rest of the top 10

Felipe Massa came home third after juggling going fast, then slow, then holding up people and passing people in aid of his team mate. He’s been faster than Alonso over the last two weekends and he’ll certainly want to take that form into next year. He’s finally looking like the driver before his accident, if he can keep this up it’ll be interesting to see how Alonso takes it. One of the stars of the race.

Mark Webber had an eventful race to fourth, falling off and fighting back a few times. Squeezed Vettel at the 
start and tried to pass him at the restart which must have made uncomfortable viewing for the Red Bull hierarchy.

Jean-Eric Vergne had a fine race to finish 8th. He battled with the best of them and was closing down Schumacher towards the end.

Kamui Kobayashi felt the final shove of Schumacher’s career as he tried to pass the Mercedes for 7th. It spun him round but he kept going for 2 points. Earlier he’d been giving Vettel a hard time so not the result he was looking for in potentially his final race in Formula 1. It really shouldn’t be, he deserves a seat next year.

Kimi Raikkonen picked up the final point and learnt a valuable lesson, always make sure escape roads have their gates open. In one of several time he left the track, he tried to go round the back at turn 11 only to discover his way blocked off. A quick spin turn and a grass cutting exercise and he was back on track. He did however get lapped meaning he was one lap short of having completed every single lap this year.

Finally Caterham took an 11th place with Vitaly Petrov meaning they passed Marussia in the constructors championship to earn valuable extra money and free travel.

So that was that then

The 2012 Formula 1 season is over, and wasn’t it just great? The majority of the races were fantastic, the championship went down to the wire and we have a great three time world champion with Sebastian Vettel after Fernando Alonso was an absolute hero for Ferrari to drag his car into contention.

Next year the regulations remain mostly the same, Pirelli are bringing new softer compounds, theirs plenty of driver changes, Alonso and Vettel will continue to lead their teams, Lotus and Kimi should progress and Lewis will win for Mercedes. It’s going to be even closer in 2013.


all photo's taken from autosport.com

Monday 19 November 2012

Hamilton's greatest win keeps title race wide open


Lewis Hamilton won a hugely tense and thrilling first race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, to set up a last round title showdown between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in Brazil.

Scoring his first win in six races, Lewis Hamilton perhaps has never driven such a great race as he hunted down Vettel and moved in for the kill. The entire weekend had been Vettel’s fastest by far in the opening three practice sessions, the Red Bull driver then followed that up with pole position.

But Saturday showed us this wasn’t going to just be a Red Bull victory party as Hamilton was only just over a tenth of second behind. It was going to be close and so it proved.

This new specially built track had been fairly grip-less all weekend, especially as Pirelli brought too conservative tyre options which took an age to heat up, but nowhere was as slippery as the even numbered side of the grid. Many race engineers predicted cars starting from there could lose up to two positions from the start.

Fortunately for Lewis, he lost just one to Mark Webber as Vettel shot away in the lead, but in recent times when the Red Bull’s have got out in front no one has seen them again for the rest of the day, not this time though.

Hamilton was soon back ahead of Webber on lap 4 and immediately cut the gap to Vettel, then steadily tracked him down. Webber duly retired 13 laps later with Red Bull’s nemesis, Renault alternator failures.

Lewis looked threatening and closed him down even getting into DRS zone; it was great to see Vettel being challenged, and it was only Lewis who could, no one else who get even close to these two. However, Vettel resisted and after a brief lock up from the McLaren he began to pull away again.

Lewis made his pit stop on lap 20, Vettel following a lap later, and suddenly Lewis heated up the attacks again. He quickly surged passed the yet to stop Kimi Raikkonen and tore after Vettel.

The DRS zone was the main attack point, but each and every time he got close through the first sectors high speed sweeps, the Red Bull traction out of the slow hairpin into the DRS straight was able to keep Vettel just out of reach, the McLaren bouncing off the rev limiter.

Lewis dropped back for a while, let everything calm down and then he launched again. He brought the gap down over a few laps then lap 41 he gets close, not quite enough though. Lap 42, he must be able to see his opportunity ahead of him.

Vettel comes into the series of fast sweeping bends, quickly approaching the HRT of Narain Karthikeyan who can’t quite get out of the way in time momentarily blocking him, the McLaren of Hamilton looms into Vettel’s mirrors, he hasn’t been this close yet, it’s the break he needed.

Into the DRS zone, Hamilton activates, Vettel immediately knows Lewis is closer than ever and pulls to the left hand side of the track to defend the inside line. Hamilton follows him across being pulled by the slip stream ever close.

Finally he darts out from behind the Red Bull rear wing and shoots past, slicing ahead of the Red Bull to hold the inside line into turn 12. He was through and he wasn’t going to lose this now.

To demonstrate just how close it was between the pair of them, Vettel didn’t just fall away, in fact he was never more than 1.5 seconds away for the remaining 14 laps. But he didn’t get an opportunity, and Lewis managed to hold a gap of more than a second to keep Vettel away from the DRS zone and win his fourth race of the year.

Hamilton drove brilliantly and he truly deserved another win for McLaren before his move to Mercedes; they failed to score a point again despite Michael Schumacher qualifying fifth, but they had no race pace and dropped back. Hamilton must hope they’ve been working on the 2013 car for a long time now.

Anyway more than that McLaren owed him a car that could challenge after the catalogue of dropped points from issues that have left Hamilton out of contention for this years title.

Vettel will rue that incident with the HRT, a win today would have put one hand on the championship trophy, he’d have been 20 points ahead heading into the final round, as it is he’s still 13 ahead, but yet again Alonso saved a result by getting on the podium.

However, Red Bull did win the constructors championship today, their third in a row which is a fantastic achievement.

Ferrari

Ferrari worked the rules today. Felipe Massa and Alonso could only qualify 6th and 8th respectively after Romain Grosjean took a grid penalty to drop him from 4th to 9th. This meant they lined up on the dirty side of the grid with supposedly less grip. There was almost a sense of paranoia about that side of the track.

They felt it was so bad, that they broke the seal on Massa’s healthy gearbox to drop him to 11th and promote Alonso to 7th and thereby giving him the preferred side of the grid as well as moving him up a position.

Whether it’s in the spirit of the rules or not is neither here nor there, as it was a great bit of team tactics and there is nothing that says you can’t do it. And it worked too. Alonso made another great start and was fourth out of the first corner, once Webber dropped out he was third and from then on, there he stayed.

Without that switch he might well have lost a place and found himself in the pack, but having said that Ferrari had a good enough pace to see them through as demonstrated by Massa’s superb charge through the field to fourth place.

He made a number of good overtakes and often was setting fastest laps. If anything Massa had the pace to beat Alonso today, in fact he was quicker all weekend, but he played the team game and if Alonso ends up world champion, Massa will have played a small, but vital part in the game. Ferrari played the game today and played it well.


Overtake of the race

Kimi Raikkonen didn’t have the speed to participate at the front this weekend like he did a fortnight ago but he still pulled off a fantastic move on Nico Hulkenberg. As he exited turn 1 he switched back to pull alongside the Force India, and then hung on round the outside of the fast turn 2 to claim the inside of the next corner. It was breath taking.

Kimi ended up 6th after a great move by Jenson Button at the end of the DRS zone to go round the outside of turn 12 and hold off the Lotus.

Rest of the top 10

Jenson Button was 5th after qualifying only 12th due to technical problems. He actually dropped down to 16th on the opening lap but fought his way through the pack with some decent scrapping and decisive as well as opportunistic overtakes. He had good speed, so it was disappointing he wasn’t able to show it most of the time.

Still he wasn’t in Lewis’ class this weekend, and surely that is a slightly concern for McLaren’s 2013 title push.

Romain Grosjean suffered a spin on lap 7 which dropped him down the order from well inside the top 10. However he still ended up right on the back of Kimi to end up 7th. If only he could stop making mistakes as he’s actually a really good race driver.

Nico Hulkenberg for Force India, Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna for Williams seemed to be constantly involved in some fantastic action as they finished 8th, 9th and 10th. The Williams’ were often in fairly close proximity.

But the entire field put on a show for their new American audience (albeit with a large quantity of Mexican’s in the audience). It won’t have helped that the NASCAR decider was on this weekend too, so the impact will have been lessened, but what they needed was a good race to demonstrate the product.

And that they got, there were battles all the way down the field, all the teams participating as mostly they fought to get past Schumacher, but after that the action continued. It was just the start Formula 1 needed in their new American home.

The title decider

So to Brazil next weekend, where apparently there’s a 40% chance of rain, Alonso does quite well when theirs a bit of precipitation. Against all the odds he’s kept himself in this title battle, is there one final card to play in the decider?

Vettel may have the advantage and the best car, but Alonso has a bullet proof car and knows Red Bull have fears about their reliability. This is still very much open; it’s all to play for in Sao Paulo. 

all photo's from autosport.com

Sunday 4 November 2012

Kimi knows what he's doing in Abu Dhabi



Lotus have been strong all year, they’ve scored many podiums already but despite coming close hadn’t managed to secure a victory. In fact I thought their time had gone, the bigger teams had out developed them and they’d slipped away during the latter part of the season.

But they still thought it was possible. What was it they needed? Qualify on the first two rows, get a good start so they can exploit their race pace, and with a little bit of luck they should get the win they’ve deserved this year.

Kimi Raikkonen did all that and more to take control of a dramatic race in Abu Dhabi and win for the first time since the Belgium Grand Prix in 2009. It was a stunning performance, almost effortless as he did just enough to get the black and gold car to the chequered flag.

Starting from fourth on the grid after Sebastian Vettel had been sent to the back of the grid, he leapt into second behind pole sitter Lewis Hamilton. He didn’t quite have the pace of the McLaren at first, in truth no one did, Lewis was untouchable this weekend.

However, Kimi wasn’t exactly falling away, his race pace in Friday practice suggested there was more to come; he got into his rhythm and he was there running untroubled in second waiting for anything that might come his way.

After a safety car on lap 9 for a spectacular crash involving Nico Rosberg vaulting over the back of Narain Karthikeyan’s HRT, the race kicked back into life on lap 15 with Lewis streaking away again, but the Lotus was lurking not far behind. Five laps later the little bit of luck came for Kimi, Hamilton’s McLaren let him down again with a fuel pump failure. As he slowed, Kimi shot past into a lead he wasn’t to lose.

He does what he does best when he’s out in front and he controlled the pace, nothing could trouble him, even telling his engineer on the radio to ‘leave me alone, I know what I’m doing’. As Kimi exited the pits after his one and only stop, he was just ahead of Vettel who was travelling quickly but still to stop one more time.

This didn’t trouble him, not even after another safety car caused by Perez being overly optimistic did he get flustered. He bolted away from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso to get clear by a couple of seconds. And when Alonso began to eat into his lead as the laps counted down, getting to within a second at one point, Kimi kept his car pointing the right way, no little slides, in fact it was Alonso who got out of shape which perhaps cost him a chance of a last lap DRS grab.

A fantastic drive for Kimi, he’s deserved nothing less from an impressive comeback season. Despite the win though, he’s now out of the championship reckoning, but the Lotus team, once Renault, once Benetton seem to have a cycle.

1994/95 two drivers titles with Michael Schumacher, 2005/06another two with Alonso, I’ve a feeling this team are beginning to find their winning curve again, watch out for them next year. But that won't bother Kimi right now, he's probably more worried about where to party!

Vettel avoids calamity to charge through the field

This championship fight isn’t over yet though, and Red Bull have made sure of that as Sebastian Vettel, who had qualified four places in front of his main title rival Alonso was sent to the back of the grid for not being able to produce the required litre fuel sample.

Other factors with his Renault engine meant Vettel had tostop on the track after his final qualifying run, but once the car was returnedto the pits, like Hamilton in Spain, the stewards stripped his times away andthat was that.

The team chose to start him from the pit lane, lengthened 7th gear giving him more top speed, and told him to attack. Attack Vettel did, but almost to calamity. He hit Bruno Senna in the early laps, slightly damaging his right front wing end plate, but he could live with it, the charge continued.

During the first safety car period though he got caught out by Daniel Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso slowing down suddenly while trying to warm his brakes, Vettel swerved to avoid him and took out a polystyrene sign damaging the other side of his front wing.

The team had no choice but to pit him switching him onto a 2 stop strategy but now he was down to the back of the pack again. It looked like it was going to be a long day for Vettel, he seemed impetuous and rattled.

That all changed though, he belted through the field, slicing his way ahead so quickly that by the time everyone had made their single stops and then he stopped for a second time he was still lying fourth. Then came the second safety car closing the leaders up, Vettel was right behind the podium places and had fresher tyres with 12 laps to go as the race restarted.Could he win this?

Well, no, but I think he could have. A late dive around the outside of Button was a brave move with three laps left, it got him on the podium, but despite reeling off a few fastest laps time would run out on him.It was a fantastic drive from the back though, and it would have been fantastic to see him catch Alonso and have the title challengers wheel to wheel.

As damage limitation missions go, it was pretty much as successful as you can get. To lose only three points to Alonso after the Saturday dramas has got to be considered a job well done.

Alonso always fighting

After qualifying Alonso must have been feeling a bit glum, he was four places behind Vettel, with a car which is just not as quick. But as Alonso said to the BBC, statistically something was going to go wrong with Red Bull at some point, and go wrong it did, not quite as much as he might have liked, but any closing of the points is a good thing at this point.

Alonso put in another terrific drive, his commitment to the cause can never be doubted. Starting from 6th he was into 5th past Jenson Button after the first corner as the McLaren slid wide. Later round the lap onto the second DRS zone although it was not yet activated, he slipstreamed Mark Webber, moved to right squeezing into Ferrari sized gap between the Red Bull and the edge of the track, left his braking very late and was through and after Pastor Maldonado.


He got him too as the Williams’ tyres faded and Lewis Hamilton was retiring, leaving him second. He kept Button at bay, and then went Kimi hunting for the win, utterly focused as he slid his car after the Lotus.

He looked delighted with his second on the podium, Ferrari needed to get one over on Red Bull after four races of trailing behind. But they need more, despite producing one of the outstanding seasons of driving, Alonso cannot compete with Vettel with this car any more.

That has been plain to see for a while now, they need updates that translate to the track, which they’re not getting at the moment.It’s still all to play for and you should never doubt that Alonso can still perform one more miracle to take the title.

Lewis a class apart in Abu Dhabi


A word must be said about Lewis Hamilton. He has driven brilliantly this year, but has been let down by his team. I believe he should be up there challenging for this championship, but this is motor racing where it’s hardly ever fair.

He dominated this weekend from the start taking a fantastic pole position and looked untouchable, but for the second time in five races a car failure robbed him of another win.

A team like McLaren shouldn’t be having these issues as regularly as they have this year, they’ve stopped this year being a contest between the best three drivers on the grid.

Jenson Button salvaged a 4th place from the day and if it hadn’t of been for the second safety car might have had third, but he wasn’t anywhere near the pace of Lewis this weekend.

There were some incidents


Well there a few crashes in this race. The Force India’s came together, knocking the Williams of Senna out the way as well. Nico Hulkenberg’s day was done after that.

Rosberg and Karthikeyan’s shunt was probably the most spectacular incident of the day. While the second 
safety car was caused by Sergio Perez’s Sauber forgetting Romain Grosjean was on the inside while fighting Paul di Resta, which concertinaed everyone together causing Mark Webber to smack the side of the Lotus and that was that; wreckage strewn everywhere.

Webber had already had a number of incidents, he got spun round by Maldonado as he closed the door on him and then banged wheels with Felipe Massa, a fun day for Mark.

Rest of the top 10

Despite the incident with Webber, Maldonado scored his best result since his win. Generally he kept out of trouble and should be satisfied with 5th.

Kamui Kobayashi rose nine places avoiding the carnage to grab 6th, while Felipe Massa recovered to 7th holding off Senna who also made a decent recovery drive after being spun round at the first corner.

Paul di Resta was running strongly before the Perez incident but still grabbed a couple of points while the final point went to Ricciardo,who managed to keep a last lap charge from Schumacher behind who had dropped out of 7th after suffering a puncture. Another sad day for the retiring champion.

Right then, two races to go and ten points in it, it’s all getting a bit tense, can’t wait for America.

all photo's taken from autosport.com