8.8.10

The 11th round of the F1 World championship took place at the Hockenheimring near Mannheim in Germany. The home crowd had plenty to cheer about with almost a quarter of the drivers being German and the return of the Mercedes Silver Arrows. Hot favourite for the win however, were the Red Bulls and in particular the local favourite Sebastian Vettel.

Ferrari had been on a bad run of late despite having developed the F10 to a point where it is probably just behind the Red Bulls in terms of outright pace. Lady Luck however, in the guise of the Safety Car and the Stewards had thus far conspired to cheat this extra speed and leave the team with far fewer points that they have maybe deserved from Valencia onwards. This weekend was therefore crucial in the quest to re-establish themselves in the championship.  

This year’s Formula 1 world championship will probably go down to the wire and to the team that develops their car better and quicker than anyone else. The Formula 1 technical world therefore, is awash with talk about ride heights, F-Ducts, and the new kids on the block  “blown diffusers” and “flexible" front wings.

 Inevitably in F1 the best ideas are very quickly copied by the other teams  - with varying degrees of success. Most teams now have a version of the McLaren F-duct which "stalls" the rear wing at high speed and the race is now on to develop the Adrian Newey re-introduced blown rear diffuser which has served him and his employers so well in the past. This is where the exhausts are routed underneath the car through the diffuser to generate more gas flow and therefore downforce, as opposed to the previous method of routing the exhaust gases over the rear wing. It seems that the blown diffuser is working well on the Red Bulls and also on the Ferraris but less so on the McLarens. They started with and then abandoned its use at Silverstone and were looking to Hockenheim to test it more fully in practice. The rainy first practice session on Friday however denied them this opportunity and an off track moment by Lewis Hamilton which significantly damaged his car put them further on the back foot. 

Qualifying started on Saturday with the big teams looking strong and using hard tyres to get through Q1. Force India’s weekend got off to a bad start when Liuzzi spun off on the Astroturf coming through turn one and collided with the pit wall causing extensive damage. By Q3 the usual suspects were through  (Red Bulls, Ferraris and McLarens) and were joined by both Williams, Kubica’s Renault and the Mercedes of Rosberg. Schumacher could only manage 11th – albeit just 0.06 seconds behind his team mate.

It was soon apparent that the Q3 shootout was going to be a duel between Ferrari and Red Bulls. Alonso threw down the gauntlet with a 1:13.713 however on his last run Vettel pipped him for pole with a 1:13.711. just 0.002 secs quicker. Behind them, Webber made a slight mistake on his final lap to finish 4th with Massa up to third to compete a very good day for Ferrari. McLaren had compromised their qualifying set up with a low downforce, higher top speed configuration and could only finish 5th and 6th with Button in front of Hamilton. However this might mean that we saw them drafting past other cars in the race, as in previous races this year.

Race day dawned fine and bright and track temperatures had risen, This was giving concern to most teams starting on the softer tyre as to how long they would last and what if any graining would occur. At the lights Vettel got a poor start and rudely moved right to squeeze Alonso towards the pit wall. In his anxiety to thwart Alonso getting though, he left a massive gap to his left, which Massa sailed through and into the lead. Alonso slipped through into second with Vettel third. Behind them, Webber had made a poor start, which hampered Button and Hamilton took advantage to come through into 4th. Further down the field the Torri Rossi and Force Indias were squabbling and banging carbon fibre and all came into the pits to either retire or replace wings, tyres etc.. A bad weekend for Force India was reinforced when they managed to put the wrong tyres on both cars (Sutil's on Liuzzi’s car and vice versa) which meant both had to pit twice to swap back again!

Back at the front Massa was enjoying his time on the soft tyres with Alonso keeping station close behind, with Vettel a further 3 seconds behind  them. Hamilton was struggling to keep up and Webber was nursing a car problem. A three horse race was  now developing and on lap 12 Vettel rushed into the pits for the harder tyres. The next lap around Alonso came in to cover this move and retain track position and the following lap Massa did likewise.  

Massa soon began to struggle on the harder tyres, locking fronts and rears with equal frequency and Alonso caught him quite rapidly with Vettel poised to take advantage of any slips. Alonso became increasingly frustrated and was heard saying “this is ridiculous” over the radio to his engineer. He momentarily got his nose ahead though, while lapping backmarkers only for Massa to shut the door and resume in front.

While this battle ensued the Ferrari hierarchy on the pit wall could be seen in a frenzy of conversation and on Lap 42 Massa got the call from his engineer Rob Smedley “Alonso is quicker than you – please confirm you understand this message”. Despite the ban on team orders the switch was made and a further message from Smedley “ Good lad, sorry”  further evidenced the obvious team decision.

The final order at the flag was Alonso, Massa and Vettel despite a late challenge by Vettel on an obviously dispirited Massa. The two McLarens were some way back in 4th and 5th , with Webber coming home 6th .  Kubica drove another fine race to grab 7th while down the field both the Williams and the two Saubers had an exciting battle towards the end of the race.

The resurgent Ferrari performance was completely overshadowed by the team orders and the amateur and clumsy way in which the switch was orchestrated. The obvious unease of both drivers after the race and in the Press conference, together with the laughable team interviews in which everyone denied that team orders had been given, further fed the media’s outrage. Ferrari were subsequently fined $100,000 and referred to the FIA World Motorsport council which will meet in September.

Click here for FIA lap chart.