A first victory in Formula 1 this year for Nico Rosberg, and he seems so much happier now. He beat his teammate Lewis Hamilton fair-and-square in Qualifying and in the race for the first time in a long, long time, and he will be feeling so much better about himself as a racing driver now.
I wrote after the Chinese Grand Prix a few weeks ago about the huge psychological effects his underwhelming start to this season have had on Nico Rosberg. He has looked like Hamtilon's 'number two' at every race so far this season, and he hasn't really seemed to believe that he has what it takes to beat his teammate on track. In Spain, however, he did believe – and his belief was vindicated, as he stood on the top step of the Podium for the first time since Brazil last year.
So, what does this mean for the Championship? I think it's rather too early to start describing this as a 'resurgence' for Rosberg – one race win, ultimately, doesn't mean much (remember when Maldonado won this same Grand Prix, a few years back?) – but it is certainly an interesting prospect.
Rosberg will be buoyed by this. He seemed much more like his old self this weekend – more like the Rosberg of 2014, who fought tooth-and-nail with Hamilton, and who genuinely believed he had what it took to win the title. And this has come at a good time for him.
This race was very much a 'last chance saloon', after the disappointment of the opening four races; his chance of winning the championship this year had all but gone, and his chances of ever being a World Champion were starting to fade. He's still on the ropes, but he's proven – to himself; to Hamilton; to his team; and to everyone else – that he can do it. He can still take the fight to Hamilton, and beat him. And the next race he'll be going into, on the back of this victory, with all the positive energy that will bring, is Monaco – his home race, where he has a winning record, where he knows he can do well.
How Hamilton responds to this, however, will be crucial. He will want to reestablish his dominance, and not allow Rosberg to ride a wave of enthusiasm into Monaco and start to build some momentum, and a little winning streak of his own. The peculiarities of Monaco will mean that much of this will come down to Qualifying. Is that where this year's Championship will, ultimately, be won and lost?
Elsewhere, McLaren's woes continue. Still no points, and another retirement for Fernando Alonso, and their season is slipping away fast. This race was supposed to be the big turning point for them; after a dismal start to the year, the team told everyone to be patient, and wait for Spain – that was where things would start to look up for them. Alonso believed the team could win its first points of 2015 at his home race. Well, we waited for Spain – but nothing has changed. The problems McLaren are having look bigger than anybody thought, and this entire season is going to be a write-off for them.
Pastor Maldonado, also, has seen no upturn in his fortunes this weekend. He has still not completed any of the races he has started so far this season, and I don't think Lotus are going to put up with this any longer. It may not always be his fault, but the fact is he always seems to get himself in scrapes. Lotus have improved hugely from their torrid 2014 season, and they now have a car capable of winning points – but that mid-to-low end of the points positions is the tightest, most competitive part of the entire field, and they find themselves fighting with other teams as desperate as they are. In that scenario, you need to have two drivers who are able to get into the mix and bring home points for the team.
At the moment, Lotus are relying solely on the solid but unremarkable seventh- and eighth-place finishes of Romain Grosjean; if they had two drivers finishing in that sort of area on a semi-regular basis, they would have overtaken Sauber in the Constructors' Championship by now. Personally, I think this year will be Maldonado's last season in Formula 1.
Showing posts with label fernando alonso. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fernando alonso. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 May 2015
Monday, 30 March 2015
#F1 – Mercedes unsettled, Ferrari resurgent
Quite a few interesting things to have come out of yesterday's Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang. The big headlines were the first Ferrari victory since Spain 2013 – and the return of Sebastian Vettel to the top of the Podium, after a win-less season in 2014. But we'll get to that…
In his interview for the BBC ahead of the race itself yesterday, Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg spoke of the disappointment of narrowly losing last year's Championship title to teammate Lewis Hamilton; however, he also said that he was 'over it' after just one day. I'm sorry, Nico, but I'm just not buying it!
When you look at his driving (both yesterday, and two weekends ago in Melbourne), Rosberg is still very clearly feeling the effects of having lost out to his teammate at the end of the 2014 season. Where Hamilton appears relaxed, confident and assertive on track – clearly a driver who is enjoying himself, and who has found a rhythm in the car – Rosberg seems cowed and nervous by comparison. On several occasions, Rosberg has pulled out of overtaking manoeuvres, or has seemed half-hearted under braking, in a way which would've been quite uncharacteristic of him last year – and the way in which he is so frequently asking his team for information about other cars and other teams over the radio makes him seem jittery and unsure of himself.
To me, it seems obvious that Rosberg has not yet recovered psychologically from the toll of the 2014 title battle, and the damage which losing to Hamilton caused him; he won't truly be back to his old self until he can take the fight to Hamilton on track – and win – to start building his confidence back up. Unfortunately for him, there seems little chance of his actually achieving this, at the moment – Hamilton has looked in another class so far this season, and he has made Rosberg (himself an exceptional racing driver) look naïve and ordinary by comparison. Rosberg knows this too, and as a consequence Hamilton has him beaten before they even get into the cars.
However, for all his confidence, and all his momentum so far this season, Hamilton has his weaknesses too. And this is where Vettel comes back into the picture… I don't think Hamilton and the Mercedes team expected such a robust challenge from Ferrari this weekend, and I think the result was the Vettel caught them napping slightly. For an élite racing team, that's pretty poor.
Once Hamilton realised he had a fight on his hands in the shape of Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari, he became agitated and surly, snapping at his race engineer over the radio and appearing to criticise the team for strategy decisions in public. For all his tremendous natural racing flair, Hamilton is a driver who is quick to react when he believes he has been wronged – I wrote last year that his achilles' heel as a sportsman is how quickly he allows himself to descend into a 'victim' mentality when he feels things aren't going his way, and we saw signs of this again towards the end of yesterday's race, as he began to see a Vettel win as the most likely outcome of the afternoon's racing.
Hamilton can complain all he likes that he was put on the wrong tyre by his team, and that this is why he lost the race to Vettel, but this is just sour grapes – Vettel looked the better driver for the vast majority of the Grand Prix, and the Ferrari was clearly the fastest car in a straight line. Hamilton could have been on any tyres, and it wouldn't have made a huge amount of difference, Vettel was just too strong for him. Vettel thoroughly deserved to win in Sepang yesterday. He was confident and self-assured, and he is obviously loving life at Ferrari! I wonder whether this story strikes anyone else as familiar, though? A confident, young German driver with a ruthless competitive instinct and forensic attention to detail who already has a few World Championships under his belt moves to a Ferrari team who've spent a few years in the wilderness, drifting aimlessly along while other teams take the glory – before long, Ferrari become a force to be reckoned with once more…
So, is Vettel the new Schumacher? Well, more than one thing contributes to a racing team's success – that much is obvious. But the fact that Vettel has been a positive influence at Ferrari, and that their return to form is at least partly linked to his arrival at the team, is (to me) self-evident.
But credit must also go to the designers – in particular, James Allison, poached from Lotus a couple of seasons ago. It is worth remembering that when Schumacher left Benetton for Ferrari at the end of the 1995 season, he took with him the technical team of Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne who had made the Benetton team so successful; although he didn't come from the same team as Vettel, or at exactly the same time, Allison seems now to be filling that rôle, and the car he has designed for this season is better than anything Ferrari have produced for a number of years.
In short, for the first time in quite a while, we are seeing a Ferrari team with purpose and direction – a Ferrari team hungry to achieve success once more. The link between this upturn in performance and the arrivals of Allison and Vettel is too strong to ignore; their influence is clearly having a big affect on Ferrari. So where does this leave Kimi Räikkönen?
Räikkönen had a pretty torrid season last year – his first back with Ferrari after his sabbatical, and subsequent stint with Lotus – and played a poor second fiddle to Fernando Alonso throughout the season. Although I would give the edge to Alonso on pure racing ability, Räikkönen is a great driver in his own right (and a former World Champion too, let's not forget!), and I do not think the gulf between him and Alonso is anything like as large as it seemed to be last year. The 2014 Ferrari did not suit Räikkönen one bit – it was a pretty weak effort all-round from the Italian team, to be fair, but somehow Alonso was able to wring its neck to a greater extent than his Finnish teammate, who often found himself languishing outside the points as a result.
This year, Räikkönen is obviously much happier with the car he has been given, and his performances and attitudes on track have borne this out. And yet, he still doesn't seem to get the joy his teammate does, in terms of race results. Is Kimi the unluckiest man in Formula 1? I would say there are plenty of candidates for that title, but Räikkönen's name has to be up there.
In Australia, Ferrari were running strongly, but had a few issues with pit-stops; those issues all happened when Räikkönen was in the pits, and never when Vettel was stopping for tyres. In the end, Räikkönen had to retire due to safety concerns regarding a wheel which had not been put on properly during a stop, and he scored no points while Vettel went on to take his first Podium finish in Ferrari red. Yesterday, Räikkönen was matching Vettel's laptimes during qualifying – until he got caught out by the rain.
The weather had a much bigger effect on the Finn than on his teammate, simply down to when they had gone out on track, and he ended up qualifying in eleventh place, nine grid slots down from Vettel in second. And this meant that, at the start of the race, Räikkönen had traffic to deal with – he suffered an early puncture, and although a Safety Car period shortly after helped nullifying some of the time he lost as a result of the puncture, that set the tone for him, in a race where he was always trying to make up lost ground. Fourth place was a decent result behind a flying Sebastian Vettel and the two Mercedes of Hamilton and Rosberg, but could he have tried for a Podium place if he hadn't been beset by yet more misfortune? Surely his luck will have to turn soon?
I hope so. A strong, confident Kimi Räikkönen is good for Ferrari, and good for F1 in general. With Ferrari coming back into the picture, Mercedes still strong, and a mid-grid of exciting young talent and teams who have certainly improved hugely on their 2014 cars (which leads me to wonder whether Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat felt a little like they were both back at Toro Rosso this weekend, as both of their junior team's rookie drivers finished ahead of them?), this should be a fascinating season to watch as it unfolds.
In his interview for the BBC ahead of the race itself yesterday, Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg spoke of the disappointment of narrowly losing last year's Championship title to teammate Lewis Hamilton; however, he also said that he was 'over it' after just one day. I'm sorry, Nico, but I'm just not buying it!
When you look at his driving (both yesterday, and two weekends ago in Melbourne), Rosberg is still very clearly feeling the effects of having lost out to his teammate at the end of the 2014 season. Where Hamilton appears relaxed, confident and assertive on track – clearly a driver who is enjoying himself, and who has found a rhythm in the car – Rosberg seems cowed and nervous by comparison. On several occasions, Rosberg has pulled out of overtaking manoeuvres, or has seemed half-hearted under braking, in a way which would've been quite uncharacteristic of him last year – and the way in which he is so frequently asking his team for information about other cars and other teams over the radio makes him seem jittery and unsure of himself.
To me, it seems obvious that Rosberg has not yet recovered psychologically from the toll of the 2014 title battle, and the damage which losing to Hamilton caused him; he won't truly be back to his old self until he can take the fight to Hamilton on track – and win – to start building his confidence back up. Unfortunately for him, there seems little chance of his actually achieving this, at the moment – Hamilton has looked in another class so far this season, and he has made Rosberg (himself an exceptional racing driver) look naïve and ordinary by comparison. Rosberg knows this too, and as a consequence Hamilton has him beaten before they even get into the cars.
However, for all his confidence, and all his momentum so far this season, Hamilton has his weaknesses too. And this is where Vettel comes back into the picture… I don't think Hamilton and the Mercedes team expected such a robust challenge from Ferrari this weekend, and I think the result was the Vettel caught them napping slightly. For an élite racing team, that's pretty poor.
Once Hamilton realised he had a fight on his hands in the shape of Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari, he became agitated and surly, snapping at his race engineer over the radio and appearing to criticise the team for strategy decisions in public. For all his tremendous natural racing flair, Hamilton is a driver who is quick to react when he believes he has been wronged – I wrote last year that his achilles' heel as a sportsman is how quickly he allows himself to descend into a 'victim' mentality when he feels things aren't going his way, and we saw signs of this again towards the end of yesterday's race, as he began to see a Vettel win as the most likely outcome of the afternoon's racing.
Hamilton can complain all he likes that he was put on the wrong tyre by his team, and that this is why he lost the race to Vettel, but this is just sour grapes – Vettel looked the better driver for the vast majority of the Grand Prix, and the Ferrari was clearly the fastest car in a straight line. Hamilton could have been on any tyres, and it wouldn't have made a huge amount of difference, Vettel was just too strong for him. Vettel thoroughly deserved to win in Sepang yesterday. He was confident and self-assured, and he is obviously loving life at Ferrari! I wonder whether this story strikes anyone else as familiar, though? A confident, young German driver with a ruthless competitive instinct and forensic attention to detail who already has a few World Championships under his belt moves to a Ferrari team who've spent a few years in the wilderness, drifting aimlessly along while other teams take the glory – before long, Ferrari become a force to be reckoned with once more…
So, is Vettel the new Schumacher? Well, more than one thing contributes to a racing team's success – that much is obvious. But the fact that Vettel has been a positive influence at Ferrari, and that their return to form is at least partly linked to his arrival at the team, is (to me) self-evident.
But credit must also go to the designers – in particular, James Allison, poached from Lotus a couple of seasons ago. It is worth remembering that when Schumacher left Benetton for Ferrari at the end of the 1995 season, he took with him the technical team of Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne who had made the Benetton team so successful; although he didn't come from the same team as Vettel, or at exactly the same time, Allison seems now to be filling that rôle, and the car he has designed for this season is better than anything Ferrari have produced for a number of years.
In short, for the first time in quite a while, we are seeing a Ferrari team with purpose and direction – a Ferrari team hungry to achieve success once more. The link between this upturn in performance and the arrivals of Allison and Vettel is too strong to ignore; their influence is clearly having a big affect on Ferrari. So where does this leave Kimi Räikkönen?
Räikkönen had a pretty torrid season last year – his first back with Ferrari after his sabbatical, and subsequent stint with Lotus – and played a poor second fiddle to Fernando Alonso throughout the season. Although I would give the edge to Alonso on pure racing ability, Räikkönen is a great driver in his own right (and a former World Champion too, let's not forget!), and I do not think the gulf between him and Alonso is anything like as large as it seemed to be last year. The 2014 Ferrari did not suit Räikkönen one bit – it was a pretty weak effort all-round from the Italian team, to be fair, but somehow Alonso was able to wring its neck to a greater extent than his Finnish teammate, who often found himself languishing outside the points as a result.
This year, Räikkönen is obviously much happier with the car he has been given, and his performances and attitudes on track have borne this out. And yet, he still doesn't seem to get the joy his teammate does, in terms of race results. Is Kimi the unluckiest man in Formula 1? I would say there are plenty of candidates for that title, but Räikkönen's name has to be up there.
In Australia, Ferrari were running strongly, but had a few issues with pit-stops; those issues all happened when Räikkönen was in the pits, and never when Vettel was stopping for tyres. In the end, Räikkönen had to retire due to safety concerns regarding a wheel which had not been put on properly during a stop, and he scored no points while Vettel went on to take his first Podium finish in Ferrari red. Yesterday, Räikkönen was matching Vettel's laptimes during qualifying – until he got caught out by the rain.
The weather had a much bigger effect on the Finn than on his teammate, simply down to when they had gone out on track, and he ended up qualifying in eleventh place, nine grid slots down from Vettel in second. And this meant that, at the start of the race, Räikkönen had traffic to deal with – he suffered an early puncture, and although a Safety Car period shortly after helped nullifying some of the time he lost as a result of the puncture, that set the tone for him, in a race where he was always trying to make up lost ground. Fourth place was a decent result behind a flying Sebastian Vettel and the two Mercedes of Hamilton and Rosberg, but could he have tried for a Podium place if he hadn't been beset by yet more misfortune? Surely his luck will have to turn soon?
I hope so. A strong, confident Kimi Räikkönen is good for Ferrari, and good for F1 in general. With Ferrari coming back into the picture, Mercedes still strong, and a mid-grid of exciting young talent and teams who have certainly improved hugely on their 2014 cars (which leads me to wonder whether Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat felt a little like they were both back at Toro Rosso this weekend, as both of their junior team's rookie drivers finished ahead of them?), this should be a fascinating season to watch as it unfolds.
Wednesday, 10 September 2014
#F1: Where now for Ferrari?
Following the news that Ferrari boss Luca Di Montezemolo has resigned after twenty-three years in charge, I am once again left pondering the uncertain fortunes of this veteran Italian marque in Formula 1. Ferrari are synonymous with Formula 1; of the eleven teams currently competing in the sport, only three names have been a constant presence on the grid throughout the whole time that I've been following the sport - Williams, McLaren, and of course, Ferrari.
Steeped in history, romance and Italian passion, Ferrari's presence in Formula 1 may have been consistent over many decades, but their performances of track have been anything but. For anyone who grew up, as I did, during the period of great Ferrari dominance in the late '90s and early '00s, and for whom a Sunday lunch still doesn't quite seem complete without the inevitable strains of the seemingly never-ending Italian National Anthem emanating from the television, Ferrari's recent period of misfortune has been rather difficult to fathom.
So, what is to be done about it? Di Montezemolo has paid the price for the past few years of Ferrari malaise, but now is the time for the team to look to the future, and start to rebuild.
When all-time great of the sport Michael Schumacher arrived at the team in the mid-'90s (having already won the World Championship twice at Benetton), Ferrari were in a mess. Together with technical chief Ross Brawn and designer Rory Byrne (who followed Schumacher to Ferrari from Benetton), Schumacher transformed the team; the rigour, the passion, the point-blank refusal to accept anything less than the absolute best which Schumacher and Brawn brought into Ferrari dragged the team back up to the sharp end of the grid, and the culture of winning this attitude instilled within the garage eventually (after a series of setbacks including a broken leg in 1998) brought Schumacher - and Ferrari - a further five consecutive World Championship victories.
The Ferrari team of 2014 is a pale shadow of the slick race-winning operation of ten years previous. They are crying out for another Brawn, another Byrne - and, above all, another Schumacher. But where will they come from? The Formula 1 paddock isn't exactly awash with the kind of people capable of shaking Ferrari out of their current malaise.
Ferrari's current driver line-up of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen is, on paper, the best on the grid. But in practice, whilst they are both great drivers, Räikkönen is cut from very different cloth when compared to somebody like Schumacher - his 'iceman' persona is the opposite of the seven-times World Champion's zeal - and Alonso, whilst fiery and passionate in his own way, can seem a little petulant on occasion. In truth, there are maybe two, or possibly three people currently in Formula 1 who would be able to rise to the challenge of kicking Ferrari back into shape - the task of convincing them to leave their current teams, however, would be nothing short of gargantuan.
The only other option, then, is to look outside the current Formula 1 sphere. A few years back, there was speculation that hugely successful MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi could make the rare switch from two-wheeled racing to four-wheeled racing, and join Ferrari as a driver. I was excited by this left-field prospect at the time, and a little disappointed not to see it come to fruition. Maybe something similar might emerge as this season starts to come to a close? If so, at least that would show Ferrari's ambitions to be moving in the right direction.
Steeped in history, romance and Italian passion, Ferrari's presence in Formula 1 may have been consistent over many decades, but their performances of track have been anything but. For anyone who grew up, as I did, during the period of great Ferrari dominance in the late '90s and early '00s, and for whom a Sunday lunch still doesn't quite seem complete without the inevitable strains of the seemingly never-ending Italian National Anthem emanating from the television, Ferrari's recent period of misfortune has been rather difficult to fathom.
So, what is to be done about it? Di Montezemolo has paid the price for the past few years of Ferrari malaise, but now is the time for the team to look to the future, and start to rebuild.
When all-time great of the sport Michael Schumacher arrived at the team in the mid-'90s (having already won the World Championship twice at Benetton), Ferrari were in a mess. Together with technical chief Ross Brawn and designer Rory Byrne (who followed Schumacher to Ferrari from Benetton), Schumacher transformed the team; the rigour, the passion, the point-blank refusal to accept anything less than the absolute best which Schumacher and Brawn brought into Ferrari dragged the team back up to the sharp end of the grid, and the culture of winning this attitude instilled within the garage eventually (after a series of setbacks including a broken leg in 1998) brought Schumacher - and Ferrari - a further five consecutive World Championship victories.
The Ferrari team of 2014 is a pale shadow of the slick race-winning operation of ten years previous. They are crying out for another Brawn, another Byrne - and, above all, another Schumacher. But where will they come from? The Formula 1 paddock isn't exactly awash with the kind of people capable of shaking Ferrari out of their current malaise.
Ferrari's current driver line-up of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen is, on paper, the best on the grid. But in practice, whilst they are both great drivers, Räikkönen is cut from very different cloth when compared to somebody like Schumacher - his 'iceman' persona is the opposite of the seven-times World Champion's zeal - and Alonso, whilst fiery and passionate in his own way, can seem a little petulant on occasion. In truth, there are maybe two, or possibly three people currently in Formula 1 who would be able to rise to the challenge of kicking Ferrari back into shape - the task of convincing them to leave their current teams, however, would be nothing short of gargantuan.
The only other option, then, is to look outside the current Formula 1 sphere. A few years back, there was speculation that hugely successful MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi could make the rare switch from two-wheeled racing to four-wheeled racing, and join Ferrari as a driver. I was excited by this left-field prospect at the time, and a little disappointed not to see it come to fruition. Maybe something similar might emerge as this season starts to come to a close? If so, at least that would show Ferrari's ambitions to be moving in the right direction.
Saturday, 17 May 2014
Sweet #FACup
As a British sports fan, I know I'm supposed to support the underdogs. That's why I would love to see Atlético Madrid beat Barcelona today and win La Liga - breaking the two-club stranglehold of Barcelona and Real Madrid which has existed in Spanish football for years. That's why I know I ought to want Hull City to beat Arsenal today, and lift the FA Cup for the first time in their history.
But, I don't. The truth is, I want Arsenal to win today - and not just because the dodgy Penalty which Hull were awarded against Norwich earlier in the season still rankles! No, I want Arsenal to win because, if they don't, the insufferable gloating of thousands of football fans gleefully pointing out the continuation of Arsenal's run of seasons without winning a trophy will be excruciating.
I can't be the only person getting fed up of this tired and and one-dimensional statistic being trotted out at every opportunity. Not only is it tedious in the extreme to hear about how Arsenal haven't won a trophy since 2005 (also an FA Cup, as it happens), it is completely disingenuous to claim that this in any way makes Arsenal a 'failure' as a club, or that this is something of which they should be ashamed.
Fernando Alonso hasn't won the Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship since 2006 - but everyone still recognises that he is one of the top drivers in the sport right now. In the light of that fact, one has to be particularly obtuse to point at this one aspect of Arsenal's recent record in football, ignoring all other factors, and claim that this somehow means they are not a successful football club.
Arsenal are a team who have not finished outside the Top 4 in the Premier League since 1996. That level of consistency, at the very highest level, is a much more remarkable statistic than the fact they haven't won a trophy for nine years. They have the third highest tally of League Titles in history (behind Liverpool and Man. Utd.), they have the second highest tally of FA Cups (behind Man. Utd.), and they still hold the record for the longest unbeaten run of Premier League games. (That they have achieved this on a much more limited budget than some Premier League clubs have available to them is even more impressive.) Moreover, I don't imagine there are many clubs in this country whose supporters and players wouldn't want to swap their 2013-14 seasons for Arsenal's!
It is harsh on Hull - who have had an excellent season, staying up in the Premier League after being promoted from the Championship this time last year, and reaching an FA Cup Final (that, in itself, is 'success'!) - to say so, but I shall be cheering on Arsenal when this year's Final gets underway this evening. If the Gunners can go from winning Sweet F.A. to Sweet FA Cup, that will shut a lot of people up - and that will be a very good thing indeed!
But, I don't. The truth is, I want Arsenal to win today - and not just because the dodgy Penalty which Hull were awarded against Norwich earlier in the season still rankles! No, I want Arsenal to win because, if they don't, the insufferable gloating of thousands of football fans gleefully pointing out the continuation of Arsenal's run of seasons without winning a trophy will be excruciating.
I can't be the only person getting fed up of this tired and and one-dimensional statistic being trotted out at every opportunity. Not only is it tedious in the extreme to hear about how Arsenal haven't won a trophy since 2005 (also an FA Cup, as it happens), it is completely disingenuous to claim that this in any way makes Arsenal a 'failure' as a club, or that this is something of which they should be ashamed.
Fernando Alonso hasn't won the Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship since 2006 - but everyone still recognises that he is one of the top drivers in the sport right now. In the light of that fact, one has to be particularly obtuse to point at this one aspect of Arsenal's recent record in football, ignoring all other factors, and claim that this somehow means they are not a successful football club.
Arsenal are a team who have not finished outside the Top 4 in the Premier League since 1996. That level of consistency, at the very highest level, is a much more remarkable statistic than the fact they haven't won a trophy for nine years. They have the third highest tally of League Titles in history (behind Liverpool and Man. Utd.), they have the second highest tally of FA Cups (behind Man. Utd.), and they still hold the record for the longest unbeaten run of Premier League games. (That they have achieved this on a much more limited budget than some Premier League clubs have available to them is even more impressive.) Moreover, I don't imagine there are many clubs in this country whose supporters and players wouldn't want to swap their 2013-14 seasons for Arsenal's!
It is harsh on Hull - who have had an excellent season, staying up in the Premier League after being promoted from the Championship this time last year, and reaching an FA Cup Final (that, in itself, is 'success'!) - to say so, but I shall be cheering on Arsenal when this year's Final gets underway this evening. If the Gunners can go from winning Sweet F.A. to Sweet FA Cup, that will shut a lot of people up - and that will be a very good thing indeed!
Sunday, 30 June 2013
#F1 - the Pirellephant in the room
Having only just finished watching the British Grand Prix (indeed, the programme - with the post-race interviews and the experts' analysis - is still on on my TV as I type this), I am struggling to understand how anyone (with the exemption of race-winner Nico Rosberg, of course!) can describe that as having been 'a great race'. It was a fascinating race, and it was highly dramatic - but, in my opinion, for all the wrong reasons.
The performance of the Pirelli tyres was, again, a big talking-point at this race. Frankly, the issue with tyres is getting hugely embarrassing now, for all involved with the sport - but when you see tyres (the same tyre each time - rear left - on different cars) spontaneously delaminate or blow-out for seemingly no reason, no fewer than four times, you start to think something has to be done about this issue.
The problem for me, as a race fan, is that even if you take out the actual tyre failures, the tyres have turned Formula 1 too much into a 'pot-luck sport'; that much was clear towards the end of today's race, as anyone who'd managed to get into the pits and change tyres when the final Safety Car period was announced got shuffled up the order ahead of those who hadn't had that opportunity - with fewer than ten laps to go, Kimi Räikkönen went from second down to fifth position, while Fernando Alonso came up from eighth place to finish third, and the only reason for that was the tyres. What this means is that putting on fresh tyres in the 'free pit-stop' gained by being in the right place at the right time when the Safety Car comes out renders all the hard work throughout the rest of the race (both quick driving and astute tactical decisions by the team) pointless - essentially, it doesn't matter how good you are, or how well you race, the tyres will decide where you finish.
There is so much nonsense talking about Formula 1, about whether it's 'boring', or whether they need to make it more 'exciting' - in my view, none of that is really the point. The tyre failures are clearly a very serious issue (and, indeed, a very dangerous issue) and that cannot be allowed to continue to happen, but from a more long-term perspective the impact these tyres are having on the quality of the racing is something about which we should also be very concerned.
The idea of creating a tyre specifically designed to wear out and degrade much quicker than you would want, in order to 'force' more excitement in the sport, is a concept with which I've never been very comfortable. To be perfectly honest, I'd actually rather see a more 'boring' (sometimes derisively called 'processional') race in which it is clear that the winner is the driver who deserved to win, because he is the best, and/or is driving the best car, rather than a race full of thrills and spills which is ultimately won by someone who maybe shouldn't really be there on merit alone, but simply got the luck of the draw in terms of tyres. (And just to be clear, I am absolutely not suggesting that Nico Rosberg was an undeserved winner today - he drove very well all weekend.)
Sadly, although there's been a lot of noise made about tyres this season (and I don't see that fuss dying down any time soon!) there have been relatively few people espousing this view that if a race is only exciting because they've had to make a tyre which is deliberately unreliable that drama excitement is somewhat false - not only that, but it's rather unfair on teams and drivers when the tyres are so flaky that it negates the need to perform well in qualifying, or to show good racecraft on-track during the race.
And what's the solution? Well, undoubtedly there will be as many different opinions about the solution as there are about the problem; in my view, two things need to change - firstly, the tyre manufacturer, and second the testing regulations. A new tyre manufacturer simply because it's time to pull the plug on the Pirelli Experiment - fairly self-explanatory, really. But the testing regulations need to change too, because whoever comes in as the new tyre supplier must have the opportunity to test their products in representative conditions, to ensure that they will perform to a high enough level, and in the manner expected.
As ever, I know the FIA will be monitoring this Blog, eager to see my suggestions for the sport of Formula 1 (they love my Sandwich Reviews as well), so I shall stop writing now and publish, to put Jean Todt out of his misery.
The performance of the Pirelli tyres was, again, a big talking-point at this race. Frankly, the issue with tyres is getting hugely embarrassing now, for all involved with the sport - but when you see tyres (the same tyre each time - rear left - on different cars) spontaneously delaminate or blow-out for seemingly no reason, no fewer than four times, you start to think something has to be done about this issue.
The problem for me, as a race fan, is that even if you take out the actual tyre failures, the tyres have turned Formula 1 too much into a 'pot-luck sport'; that much was clear towards the end of today's race, as anyone who'd managed to get into the pits and change tyres when the final Safety Car period was announced got shuffled up the order ahead of those who hadn't had that opportunity - with fewer than ten laps to go, Kimi Räikkönen went from second down to fifth position, while Fernando Alonso came up from eighth place to finish third, and the only reason for that was the tyres. What this means is that putting on fresh tyres in the 'free pit-stop' gained by being in the right place at the right time when the Safety Car comes out renders all the hard work throughout the rest of the race (both quick driving and astute tactical decisions by the team) pointless - essentially, it doesn't matter how good you are, or how well you race, the tyres will decide where you finish.
There is so much nonsense talking about Formula 1, about whether it's 'boring', or whether they need to make it more 'exciting' - in my view, none of that is really the point. The tyre failures are clearly a very serious issue (and, indeed, a very dangerous issue) and that cannot be allowed to continue to happen, but from a more long-term perspective the impact these tyres are having on the quality of the racing is something about which we should also be very concerned.
The idea of creating a tyre specifically designed to wear out and degrade much quicker than you would want, in order to 'force' more excitement in the sport, is a concept with which I've never been very comfortable. To be perfectly honest, I'd actually rather see a more 'boring' (sometimes derisively called 'processional') race in which it is clear that the winner is the driver who deserved to win, because he is the best, and/or is driving the best car, rather than a race full of thrills and spills which is ultimately won by someone who maybe shouldn't really be there on merit alone, but simply got the luck of the draw in terms of tyres. (And just to be clear, I am absolutely not suggesting that Nico Rosberg was an undeserved winner today - he drove very well all weekend.)
Sadly, although there's been a lot of noise made about tyres this season (and I don't see that fuss dying down any time soon!) there have been relatively few people espousing this view that if a race is only exciting because they've had to make a tyre which is deliberately unreliable that drama excitement is somewhat false - not only that, but it's rather unfair on teams and drivers when the tyres are so flaky that it negates the need to perform well in qualifying, or to show good racecraft on-track during the race.
And what's the solution? Well, undoubtedly there will be as many different opinions about the solution as there are about the problem; in my view, two things need to change - firstly, the tyre manufacturer, and second the testing regulations. A new tyre manufacturer simply because it's time to pull the plug on the Pirelli Experiment - fairly self-explanatory, really. But the testing regulations need to change too, because whoever comes in as the new tyre supplier must have the opportunity to test their products in representative conditions, to ensure that they will perform to a high enough level, and in the manner expected.
As ever, I know the FIA will be monitoring this Blog, eager to see my suggestions for the sport of Formula 1 (they love my Sandwich Reviews as well), so I shall stop writing now and publish, to put Jean Todt out of his misery.
Friday, 7 September 2012
#F1 - Woe Man Grosjean?!
I believe Romain Grosjean's one-race suspension (effective for this weekend's Italian Grand Prix in Monza) to be most unfortunate. I'm not saying it's unfair, or undeserved - but it certainly is unfortunate.
I've been flying the flag for Romain Grosjean for the best part of this Formula 1 season. In searching for a new driver to support, following the departure of the great Rubens Barrichello, the talent of Grosjean really caught my eye, and I've been cheering for him, and the Lotus team, ever since. (Of course, I'm not as attached to him yet as I was to Barrichello - there is a small part of me which still hopes the veteran Brazillian driver may yet return in 2013 - but it's a work in progress; Barrichello left big race boots to fill!)
It has, however, been difficult to keep the faith, over the past fews days, in the midst of the backlash from last weekend's first-corner carnage at Spa Francorchamps, in Belgium. The crash which took out Championship contenders Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, as well as Sauber's Sergio Pérez was initially triggered by Grosjean off the start line, and this is the reason for his unfortunate one-race ban.
To be absoutely clear, I am certainly not condoning Grosjean's driving off the line in Belgium; having watched numerous replays, it was definitely a very poor piece of driving, and the resulting incident was frighteningly close to being very serious indeed (in terms of injuries, or even fatalities). The punishment for this error of judgement is severe, but not unfair. My worry, though, is that it unfairly tarnishes other race fans' opinions of Grosjean - a young, talented racing driver, with lots to give.
Something which has particularly alerted me to this possibility is the statistic being constantly parroted in news articles, and on forums and message-boards across the web, that Grosjean has been involved in no fewer than seven incidents in the opening stages of a Grand Prix - six times on the first lap, and once on the second lap.
Whilst factually accurate, it is my opinion that this statistic doesn't portray Grosjean in a fair light. After all, how many of those incidents were actually his fault - and on how many occasions was he just unlucky? I have been looking into this, and with the help of this handy video from BBC sport, showing all of Grosjean's opening-lap crashes this year, I shall attempt to point my point-of-view across.
In the opening race of the 2012 season, at Melbourne's Albert Park circuit in Australia, Grosjean collided with Pastor Maldonado on Lap 2, breaking his front suspension, and forcing his retirement from the race. The two young drivers are side-by-side coming around the corner, their cars touch, and Grosjean slithers off onto the gravel with his right front wheel hanging off at a very strange angle indeed. Former Grand Prix driver, and BBC Sport commentator David Coulthard is very quick to pin the blame for this incident on Grosjean:
I don't have the experience or the insight of Coulthard, of course, but I can't reconcile myself with the idea that this crash is solely Romain Grosjean's fault. At the apex of the turn, the two cars are level with each other - Maldonado has more pace, but he has to allow Grosjean the space he needs on the exit of the corner, and he doesn't do that. In my opinion, this is purely a "racing incident" - just one of those things that happens.
This first lap collision with Michael Schumacher is a difficult one to call. So much rain is there spattered on the lenses of the cameras that it's hard always to see what's going on in these replays. Relying as much on the commentary as anything else, it seems that Grosjean touched Schumacher's car from behind - which, in the wet conditions, was enough to send the German driver into a spin.
In my (inexpert) opinion, it appears to be another "racing incident" - although I would say that Grosjean is more at fault than Schumacher, on this one, being the car behind. Racing in wet weather is tough, though, and things happen so quickly that one tiny mistake can have big consequences.
In the end, Grosjean later retired from the race, and Schumacher recovered to finish 10th.
Another hard one to judge, this. Contact with Sergio Pérez at the third corner on the first lap causes a puncture on Pérez's car, forcing him to pit for tyres. The only camera angles I have found of this have been most unhelpful, and it is hard to see really what is going on - again, Grosjean closest to the edge of the race track here, and it's possible to accuse Pérez of not allowing him enough room, although this would be quite a flimsy claim.
The most concrete thing anyone can say about this incident is that there was no penalty award to either driver in its aftermath. If the Race Stewards (with many more camera angles than I will probably ever have access to!) didn't deem anyone to be at fault for this, then, in the absence of any firm evidence of to call my own, I can hardly go against that!
Yet another "racing incident" (at least in the eyes of the Stewards!) it would seem.
Grosjean's contact with Michael Schumacher off the line in Monaco was a particularly unfortunate one, I thought. It added to a catalogue of woes for the Schumacher - the seven-times World Champion had been the fastest car in Qualifying, but had been demoted for a pervious incident with Bruno Senna in Spain.
I really felt for Michael in this situation, as he hasn't had the best of luck since his return to the sport, and his Qualifying performance in Monaco allowed us all a glimpse of what he is truly capable of, and showed us that he can still be the great racing driver that he undoubtedly was during his first career in F1. This first-lap crash was a sad end to what had once been a very promising weekend for the German.
Having watched the replays, this is a fairly cut-and-dried one, and I have to concede that it is Grosjean's fault. He was ahead of Schumacher on the grid, but the Mercedes is faster, pulling up alongside Grosjean's Lotus as they move away. Grosjean is guilty here of not being quite aware enough of his surroundings, in my opinion - he doesn't seem really to know that Schumacher is there next to him, and he cuts across the Mercedes as they leave the grid, without allowing him enough space - they touch, and Grosjean's car spins 'round, ending his race.
Interestingly, David Coulthard's commentary doesn't assign the blame for this incident to Grosjean (although, in my opinion, that's quite clearly where it lies), saying instead:
Another heartache incident here, as the victim is promising young British driver Paul Di Resta who collects a puncture and ends up retiring from his home Grand Prix at Silverstone (interestingly, Di Resta's only non-finish so far this year).
Despite his impressive record, though (only one DNF this season), I am inclined to blame Paul for his puncture at the British Grand Prix. Di Resta's Force India car comes across the front of Grosjean's Lotus, as they exit the corner, and his rear wheel tags Grosjean's front wing, causing the puncture.
From watching the replays, there is nothing (so far as I can see, anyway!) which suggests that Grosjean in any way altered his course into the path of Paul Di Resta's car, and I can only assume that this was an error on the part of the British driver, thinking he was already well clear of Grosjean, when, in fact, they were still slightly overlapped.
Another really tough one to decide, here - not least because the footage of the actual incident itself is so scarce. It looks, from what I can see, as if Grosjean is hit from behind by Felipe Massa, but it is difficult to apportion blame to either driver, on such scant evidence. Like in Spain, the only thing I can say for definite is that there were no penalties handed out by the Stewards for what happened - in their eyes, I assume, this was another "racing incident", and from the little of it I've seen, that is an explanation which satisfies me.
So much has been written about this already, it seems a little pointless for me to delve into it too deeply now. Yes, of course this crash was Grosjean's fault - it was stupid and reckless, and it could've ended up seriously hurting someone.
So, in conclusion, only two of those incidents (Belgium and Monaco) were definitely Grosjean's fault. The other five are debatable, at best.
The one-race ban, as I've already said, is a harsh but fair punishment for the crash in Spa. I am pleased to see that Grosjean's response to his suspension from racing has been a mature and responsible one, apologising unreservedly for his actions, and vowing to be more aware from now on.
What saddens me, though, is articles painting Grosjean as a perpetually reckless or dangerous driver (like this one in the Globe and Mail) or comments and Blogs which lump Grosjean in with Pastor Maldonado - a man who, in my opinion, is a very dangerous driver, with a history of overly-aggressive driving, and using his car as a weapon (see the comments at the bottom of this article on ESPN for examples of what I mean).
I hope that, when the dust settles from all of this, and Grosjean returns to F1 in Singapore at the end of September, the world of racing fans can see through this unfortunate episode, and continue to recognise the talent and potential which this exciting young driver brings to the sport.
I've been flying the flag for Romain Grosjean for the best part of this Formula 1 season. In searching for a new driver to support, following the departure of the great Rubens Barrichello, the talent of Grosjean really caught my eye, and I've been cheering for him, and the Lotus team, ever since. (Of course, I'm not as attached to him yet as I was to Barrichello - there is a small part of me which still hopes the veteran Brazillian driver may yet return in 2013 - but it's a work in progress; Barrichello left big race boots to fill!)
It has, however, been difficult to keep the faith, over the past fews days, in the midst of the backlash from last weekend's first-corner carnage at Spa Francorchamps, in Belgium. The crash which took out Championship contenders Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, as well as Sauber's Sergio Pérez was initially triggered by Grosjean off the start line, and this is the reason for his unfortunate one-race ban.
To be absoutely clear, I am certainly not condoning Grosjean's driving off the line in Belgium; having watched numerous replays, it was definitely a very poor piece of driving, and the resulting incident was frighteningly close to being very serious indeed (in terms of injuries, or even fatalities). The punishment for this error of judgement is severe, but not unfair. My worry, though, is that it unfairly tarnishes other race fans' opinions of Grosjean - a young, talented racing driver, with lots to give.
Something which has particularly alerted me to this possibility is the statistic being constantly parroted in news articles, and on forums and message-boards across the web, that Grosjean has been involved in no fewer than seven incidents in the opening stages of a Grand Prix - six times on the first lap, and once on the second lap.
Whilst factually accurate, it is my opinion that this statistic doesn't portray Grosjean in a fair light. After all, how many of those incidents were actually his fault - and on how many occasions was he just unlucky? I have been looking into this, and with the help of this handy video from BBC sport, showing all of Grosjean's opening-lap crashes this year, I shall attempt to point my point-of-view across.
Australia
In the opening race of the 2012 season, at Melbourne's Albert Park circuit in Australia, Grosjean collided with Pastor Maldonado on Lap 2, breaking his front suspension, and forcing his retirement from the race. The two young drivers are side-by-side coming around the corner, their cars touch, and Grosjean slithers off onto the gravel with his right front wheel hanging off at a very strange angle indeed. Former Grand Prix driver, and BBC Sport commentator David Coulthard is very quick to pin the blame for this incident on Grosjean:
"The pass was done, and Grosjean should've got out of the power there!"But having watched this crash several times, I can't honestly say I agree with that analysis. As they come 'round the bend, it looks to me like Maldonado squeezes Grosjean, and he runs out of room on the track.
I don't have the experience or the insight of Coulthard, of course, but I can't reconcile myself with the idea that this crash is solely Romain Grosjean's fault. At the apex of the turn, the two cars are level with each other - Maldonado has more pace, but he has to allow Grosjean the space he needs on the exit of the corner, and he doesn't do that. In my opinion, this is purely a "racing incident" - just one of those things that happens.
Malaysia
This first lap collision with Michael Schumacher is a difficult one to call. So much rain is there spattered on the lenses of the cameras that it's hard always to see what's going on in these replays. Relying as much on the commentary as anything else, it seems that Grosjean touched Schumacher's car from behind - which, in the wet conditions, was enough to send the German driver into a spin.
In my (inexpert) opinion, it appears to be another "racing incident" - although I would say that Grosjean is more at fault than Schumacher, on this one, being the car behind. Racing in wet weather is tough, though, and things happen so quickly that one tiny mistake can have big consequences.
In the end, Grosjean later retired from the race, and Schumacher recovered to finish 10th.
Spain
Another hard one to judge, this. Contact with Sergio Pérez at the third corner on the first lap causes a puncture on Pérez's car, forcing him to pit for tyres. The only camera angles I have found of this have been most unhelpful, and it is hard to see really what is going on - again, Grosjean closest to the edge of the race track here, and it's possible to accuse Pérez of not allowing him enough room, although this would be quite a flimsy claim.
The most concrete thing anyone can say about this incident is that there was no penalty award to either driver in its aftermath. If the Race Stewards (with many more camera angles than I will probably ever have access to!) didn't deem anyone to be at fault for this, then, in the absence of any firm evidence of to call my own, I can hardly go against that!
Yet another "racing incident" (at least in the eyes of the Stewards!) it would seem.
Monaco
Grosjean's contact with Michael Schumacher off the line in Monaco was a particularly unfortunate one, I thought. It added to a catalogue of woes for the Schumacher - the seven-times World Champion had been the fastest car in Qualifying, but had been demoted for a pervious incident with Bruno Senna in Spain.
I really felt for Michael in this situation, as he hasn't had the best of luck since his return to the sport, and his Qualifying performance in Monaco allowed us all a glimpse of what he is truly capable of, and showed us that he can still be the great racing driver that he undoubtedly was during his first career in F1. This first-lap crash was a sad end to what had once been a very promising weekend for the German.
Having watched the replays, this is a fairly cut-and-dried one, and I have to concede that it is Grosjean's fault. He was ahead of Schumacher on the grid, but the Mercedes is faster, pulling up alongside Grosjean's Lotus as they move away. Grosjean is guilty here of not being quite aware enough of his surroundings, in my opinion - he doesn't seem really to know that Schumacher is there next to him, and he cuts across the Mercedes as they leave the grid, without allowing him enough space - they touch, and Grosjean's car spins 'round, ending his race.
Interestingly, David Coulthard's commentary doesn't assign the blame for this incident to Grosjean (although, in my opinion, that's quite clearly where it lies), saying instead:
"Unfortunately, I think that's just one of those things, in Monte Carlo."
Great Britain
Another heartache incident here, as the victim is promising young British driver Paul Di Resta who collects a puncture and ends up retiring from his home Grand Prix at Silverstone (interestingly, Di Resta's only non-finish so far this year).
Despite his impressive record, though (only one DNF this season), I am inclined to blame Paul for his puncture at the British Grand Prix. Di Resta's Force India car comes across the front of Grosjean's Lotus, as they exit the corner, and his rear wheel tags Grosjean's front wing, causing the puncture.
From watching the replays, there is nothing (so far as I can see, anyway!) which suggests that Grosjean in any way altered his course into the path of Paul Di Resta's car, and I can only assume that this was an error on the part of the British driver, thinking he was already well clear of Grosjean, when, in fact, they were still slightly overlapped.
Germany
Another really tough one to decide, here - not least because the footage of the actual incident itself is so scarce. It looks, from what I can see, as if Grosjean is hit from behind by Felipe Massa, but it is difficult to apportion blame to either driver, on such scant evidence. Like in Spain, the only thing I can say for definite is that there were no penalties handed out by the Stewards for what happened - in their eyes, I assume, this was another "racing incident", and from the little of it I've seen, that is an explanation which satisfies me.
Belgium
So much has been written about this already, it seems a little pointless for me to delve into it too deeply now. Yes, of course this crash was Grosjean's fault - it was stupid and reckless, and it could've ended up seriously hurting someone.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, only two of those incidents (Belgium and Monaco) were definitely Grosjean's fault. The other five are debatable, at best.
The one-race ban, as I've already said, is a harsh but fair punishment for the crash in Spa. I am pleased to see that Grosjean's response to his suspension from racing has been a mature and responsible one, apologising unreservedly for his actions, and vowing to be more aware from now on.
What saddens me, though, is articles painting Grosjean as a perpetually reckless or dangerous driver (like this one in the Globe and Mail) or comments and Blogs which lump Grosjean in with Pastor Maldonado - a man who, in my opinion, is a very dangerous driver, with a history of overly-aggressive driving, and using his car as a weapon (see the comments at the bottom of this article on ESPN for examples of what I mean).
I hope that, when the dust settles from all of this, and Grosjean returns to F1 in Singapore at the end of September, the world of racing fans can see through this unfortunate episode, and continue to recognise the talent and potential which this exciting young driver brings to the sport.
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