5.7.10

Well that was quite interesting. Not the race itself of course which was pretty dire, but the stuff going on around it. Having fallen asleep twice, it wasn't until my third viewing that I picked up the best racing when Kobayashi jumped Alonso on the last lap and Buemi in the last corner to come home seventh. Kobayashi had run as high as third, starting on the harder tyres and staying out during a Safety Car and his new tyres were fresher at the end. The SC was deployed after a horrendous accident when Mark Webber's Red Bull mounted Kovalainen's Lotus, flew high into the air, somersaulted and slid at speed into the crash barrier.

Webber had qualified second but on the opening lap fell through the field like a broken lift, pitted early and emerged behind the Lotus. They were racing for position, Webber said Kovalainen braked early, Mike Gascoyne of Lotus said not. Whatever, we must be grateful that both Webber and Kovalainen escaped unhurt.

The Safety Car period also generated an Alonso/Ferrari wobbly of epic proportions. When the Webber accident happened on lap 8 Vettel was comfortably in the lead, having started from pole. Hamilton was second and Alonso and Massa third and fourth. When the Safety Car came out into the pit lane Vettel had long since passed but Hamilton was alongside it. He hesitated then passed, Alonso and Massa fell in behind. Lewis cleared off into the distance. The Ferraris pitted together and were stacked, catastrophically delaying the luckless Massa who was second in the queue. Lewis pitted a lap after than the general mêlée and easily held onto second. After they re-joined the Fazzas were 9th (Alonso) and 15th (Massa).

We then heard Alonso ranting on the radio and then saw "An incident involving Car 2 (Hamilton) was under investigation by the Stewards". This took some time and when Hamilton was finally given a drive-through penalty he had built up enough of a buffer to hang onto second place which he held to the flag. Ferrari and Alonso perceived that Hamilton had broken the rules and got away scot-free, whereas they had obeyed them and been penalised. After the race we were treated to a full-on Alonso tirade in which he accused the Stewards of "manipulating" the race result. It can't have helped his temper being jumped by Kobayashi AND in Spain. A couple of days later when he'd calmed down he withdrew the manipulation allegation and apologised, but Stefano Domenicali, Luca and even Piero Ferrari have had a moan and now Italy’s motorsport-sanctioning body the CSAI (Commissione Sportiva Automobilistica Italiana) has joined in! Just like the old days.....

All have lamented the ‘uncertainty and confusion’ that it claims ‘damages the credibility’ of the sport, and suggesting a ‘degree of subjectivity’ was involved in the administering of penalties. So far the Vatican has remained silent but the Pope is German and Vettel won. Alonso and Ferrari may have a point but none of this does them any favours. The facts were that the Stewards decision was delayed because they were assembling the evidence necessary to make an informed decision.

Outside Italy there has been little sympathy for Ferrari, this is perhaps not surprising after all the years where the FIA was said to have favoured them. The other teams derided Alonso's comments and McLaren easily won the PR war with Hamilton saying his outburst was just sour grapes and Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh saying that things are better under Jean Todt with the Stewards allowing drivers to race and the FIA not penalising Alonso for the outburst.

Much of Alonso's frustration must come from Ferrari's continuing inability to challenge for the win. They had high hopes for Valencia. It was not expected to suit the Red Bull, being a combination of slow corners and long straights where their high downforce would not be such an advantage; however for Valencia they had an F Duct. Ferrari had a blown diffuser a lá Red Bull and McLaren had not, yet Hamilton out-qualified Alonso and the Grey Empire thrashed the Scuderia in the race. They were second and third, picking up 33 points - Ferrari got 2. Maybe in this new era of glasnost Ferrari would be better to state their case quietly and get on with making the car go faster.

If things were bad at Ferrari, maybe making a tifoso think wistfully of the old days, they were much worse at Mercedes where some of the Ferrari Dream Team work now. Apparently the Silver Arrows cannot switch their tyres on for a single lap, which is a touch inconvenient for qualifying. You will remember that the Brawn GP001 suffered from the same problem once the season entered more temperate zones. Rosberg qualified 12th and finished tenth after de la Rosa and Petrov were penalised 5 seconds for Safety Car infringements. He was unamused to be beaten by Williams - the team he left to go to Merc. Schuey qualified 15th and finished in the same position.... Once again, in this era where we are deluged by words, there is no satisfactory explanation of Mercedes' plight, though Ross did give a hint in saying they need to sort their aero out.

Sensible Ross did say that he thought the moveable rear wing concept was workable after the drivers were a bit huffy about it. The idea of this is to deliver exiting racing and overtaking which 78.7% of fans strongly agree with. This is from the latest F1 fans survey and is the unweighted sample. Even in the weighted sample (whatever that means) it's 57.3%. However who on earth are the 1.1% (unweighted, 3.5% weighted) who STRONGLY DISAGREE that this is important - the drivers??

I was one of the 90,000 fans who completed this survey and I must say it has afforded me considerable pleasure as the majority of responses agree with mine. This does suggest that F1's hard core fan base is middle-aged curmudgeons who never actually go to the races anymore (75.7% UW). The survey is full of other delights which those organising F1 will regard with horror and dismay. 75.1% (UW) of us never access our mobile phones for F1 information/results. This is hardly a surprise as even my friends who've got phones capable of doing this can't actually work them. This is probably why a surprising 35.5% (UW, 58.3% W) don't record races when they're on at an inconvenient time - they either forget to do it or can't work out how to do it.

There's loads of other good stuff like we love the traditional European venues and don't care a fig about the new ones. When asked what was your favourite moment of the 2009 season the winner was Force India's performance at Spa! There are the usual conflicts in there in that most of us love advanced technology in F1 but want the driver to be more important. Quite what the marketing people will think when they see that most seem indifferent to companies and brands appearing in F1 one cannot imagine. I said John Player Special was the most memorable brand in F1 (after Santander and Shell of course). Click here for the survey results.

Anyway, back to Valencia docks. Absolutely dreadful track, concrete and catch fencing lined trench, visually uninspiring if you are watching on TV and overtaking almost impossible unless you are Japanese. In the end the results were predictable with Vettel winning, the only threats to this came from Hamilton at the start and when Vettel overcooked a corner just after the SC went in. The Maccas were second and third. Barrichello was a surprise fourth for Williams and Kubica and Sutil put in their usual solid points-scoring performances for fifth and sixth. The star of the race, Kobayashi, was seventh for Sauber, Buemi eighth for Toro Rosso, Alonso ninth and Rosberg tenth - all this after Button, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil, Buemi, de la Rosa, Petrov and Liuzzi were penalized 5 secs for SC infringements.

On now to Silverstone. My first impressions of the new Arena Track are not good - for me it's robbed the place of its traditional feel, but we'll see. If it permits more passing then it's marvellous.

Click here for FIA lap chart

Stefano Domenicali: “The outcome of this Grand Prix leaves us with a very bitter taste. We had everything we needed to clinch a good result and we have ended up with a handful of points which is even less than we brought home from our worst race, a month ago in Turkey. It is a real shame because over this weekend we have shown that we have made a good step forward in terms of performance and the opening stage of the race looked promising. Then came the unfortunate blow linked to the safety car period, which arrived at the very worst moment for us in that both our cars had just gone past the pit lane entry and therefore were forced to do a full lap behind the Safety Car. ”

Fernando Alonso: “The race was ruined by the Safety Car and everything that followed on from that. I am disappointed most of all for the thousands of spectators who were here today and saw how the situation was handled. I am very bitter about what happened today. I was in third place, a metre behind Hamilton at the moment the Safety Car came out on track and, at the chequered flag, he was second and I was ninth, even though we had made the same choice of strategy. The penalty he was given came when it could no longer have any real influence on his finishing position. From then on, my race was compromised. I was always in traffic and I did not get the performance I had expected from the hard tyres: this also explains the difficulty I had in passing first Sutil and then Buemi. This is definitely a bad result for us.”

Felipe Massa: “Another horrible race on the back of the one in Canada. We were lying third and fourth with cars capable of getting a great result and instead, everyone has seen how it ended. On the lap when the accident happened, we were coming into the final corner and there was nothing, then suddenly, the Safety Car came out on track and I saw in the mirrors that the cars behind us were pitting: our chance of fighting for the podium went up in smoke at that moment. The difference between us and Hamilton is that he committed an infraction and we did not, but his penalty had no effect on his result. I think that errors were made in the way this situation was managed. ”