#F1 – Red Bull's woes

The talk recently has been of Ferrari being a team 'in crisis' – all of which has let the issues at Red Bull slip a little under the radar.  Performance has dropped off in the past couple of seasons, and Red Bull – a team which had become so accustomed to winning not so long ago – are now much more used to fighting midfield battles, and high-profile fallings out with longstanding engine supplies Renault have only compounded the team's decline.

However, Red Bull's problems have come to the fore in the past couple of days, as it was revealed that Max Verstappen will be promoted from the junior Toro Rosso team to drive for Red Bull for the rest of this season, in place of Russian Daniil Kvyat.

It is a decision which comes close to completely incomprehensible.  As I remarked on Twitter on Thursday when this news first broke, when even a current driver (and former World Champion) in the shape of Jenson Button is laying into a team's decision-making process, you have to think that something is going seriously wrong.

Really? one bad race and Kyvat's dropped, what about the podium in the previous race? #Shortmemories https://t.co/8YDBZPDP3v

— Jenson Button (@JensonButton) May 5, 2016

The decision is baffling for so many reasons.  Not least because, despite a rocky couple of races this season, Kvyat hasn't really done that much wrong.  He has made mistakes, yes – but no worse than plenty of other racing drivers have made.  He needs the opportunity to learn from those mistakes.

Two first lap incidents in consecutive races is maybe a sign that the team should sit down with him, have a chat about being slightly less aggressive into the opening corners of a race, and encourage him to race smarter and come back a stronger, more intelligent racer in the Grand Prix ahead.  It shouldn't be the end of his Red Bull career.

Of the current field of drivers, I am a big admirer of Romain Grosjean – whom I think is a huge talent, and a very exciting driver.  It wasn't that long ago, though, that he was having his own issues with incidents on the first laps of races – issues which were far more serious than Kvyat's this year have been.

I wrote at the time how Grosjean could be a force to be reckoned with if he could fix the first lap gremlins, and I like to think that this stance has been vindicated in more recent seasons.  Despite a two-race ban for causing a first lap crash Belgium in 2012, his team (then Lotus Renault) kept faith with him, and gave him a chance to come back from the race ban as demonstrate he had learnt his lesson, calmed down, and matured on track.  It should be clear, now, that this was the right decision by the Lotus team, as Grosjean made the most of that opportunity and went on to score points and podium finishes for them, becoming a respected figure on the F1 grid in the process.

I believe Red Bull should give Kvyat – who is still only young, and learning his trade in Formula 1 – the same opportunity.  His recent incidents have been unfortunate – and of course frustrating for Sebastian Vettel, who always seems to be on the receiving end of them! – but not serious enough in my view for Red Bull to replace him so summarily.  Of course, we don't know the whole story – there could be other issues going on behind the scenes which have contributed to Kvyat losing his seat at Red Bull – but on the face of it, the whole situation looks very harsh on the Russian.

The other consideration is the affect that this will have on Max Verstappen, the driver who will be replacing Kvyat after only one season in F1.  Verstappen (son of former F1 driver Jos Verstappen) has universally acknowledged to be a future star after his debut season with the Toro Rosso team last year.  He is young, talented, and has superb racing instincts.  He's not without his own incidents either, of course – normally brought about by inexperience, and the impetuousness of youth – but no one who watched the 2015 season could've failed to be impressed by the young dutchman.

The trouble with the stars of the future is that Formula 1 teams have an unfortunate habit of trying to make them the stars of now – often before they are ready.  It is something I think we have seen before, most recently with Sergio Pérez's disappointing season at McLaren.

Trying to promote young talent into teams with winning cultures and high expectations can end very badly indeed, and can damage the career of the young driver promoted before he was ready – the pressure of driving for Red Bull will be vastly more than the pressures of driving for Toro Rosso, and I fear Verstappen may struggle to cope with the hype of being 'the next big thing', and having to deliver results for a team with the recent history of success Red Bull has, at such a young age and so soon in his racing career.

Maybe Max Verstappen will rise to the challenge and will be on the podium before the end of this year.  If so, congratulations will certainly be in order!  But it is an enormous risk to pile pressure – particularly in such an unexpected and sudden way as this – on a young rookie driver, no matter how talented or hungry for success he might be.  I hope Red Bull don't live to regret this decision.

#F1: Swingapore

What a difference!  Ferrari and Red Bull the dominant teams, Mercedes fighting behind the top four, before eventually retiring one car after Championship leader Lewis Hamilton lost power to end up 40mph slower through the speed trap.  Singapore certainly provided a change from what's been the norm in Formula 1 this season.

Hamilton's lead in the Championship is still assured, and I can't see anyone else taking the title this year.  It was definitely interesting to watch a race playing out without Hamilton fifteen seconds ahead of everyone else, though.  Sebastian Vettel proved he hasn't lost his touch when it comes to controlling a race from the front, as he led from Pole position to take a third win this year in his Ferrari.  His teammate Kimi Räikkönen, on the other hand, finished third but seemed unable to match Vettel or Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo for pace.

Räikkönen seems to turn the car in differently from Vettel at the entry to the corners.  It's hard to see exactly what's going on there without access to more slow replays of the two of them (I might look some up later and do some more analysis when I can compare them more thoroughly), but Vettel is able to squeeze a bit of extra grip in the turn where Räikkönen can't.  Ferrari's upgrades this weekend have helped them a lot, though, and as I remarked on Twitter their capture of technical director James Allison from Lotus is looking ever more inspired – and ever more of a loss for the Enstone-based team.

Speaking of Lotus, it was another weekend to forget, really.  They were not quick at this circuit, but Romain Grosjean managed to deliver a surprised top 10 Qualifying position.  He had a possibility of picking up some points, as well, running in the lower end of the top 10 most of the evening – but I think the team got his strategy wrong.  They were the first to stop for tyres at each Pitstop window, and I think this ended up costing them as his tyres were older than everyone else's in the last few laps of the race, leaving him unable to defend his position from two hungry young Toro Rosso drivers on considerably fresher (and softer) tyres.

It was the Toro Rosso pairing of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr. who stole the show, and had everyone talking during the post-race analysis.  However, I was less than impressed on a couple of occasions.

Let's go back to the battle with Grosjean, for a minute.  Max Verstappen passed Grosjean to take eighth place, and did an excellent job of it (although there were a nervous few moments where I half expected a repeat of Monaco, where Verstappen misjudged his braking and run straight into the back of the Lotus driver!), but when it was Sainz' turn to line up Grosjean for an overtake, I felt the Lotus man was rather hard-done-by.  Sainz' overtaking move was brave, and well-executed – but the TV replays showed clearly that he had all four wheels off the circuit as he did it.  He should've had to give the place back.

What irked me even more was that Martin Brundle's commentary for Sky F1 seemed to say that this did not matter.  He claimed that it was a good move, and it would be wrong to penalise drivers for trying to make overtakes.  It's not wrong to penalise drivers for breaking the rules, though, and Sainz clearly did.  I wrote just last week about how important it is for rules to be applied fairly and consistently – especially the 'track limits' rule – and here is a commentator and big motor racing personality advocating that we waive punishment for a clear infringement of the rules just because it looked cool.  That is utter nonsense, and makes a mockery of the sport.

As I remarked on Twitter, this is akin to a footballer hitting a fantastic strike from thirty yards out, only to see his shot rebound off the goalpost – only for the referee to say he is awarding a goal anyway, because it was such a good strike.  Yes, Sainz was driving extremely well – but rules are rules, and no matter how nice a piece of driving his overtake on Grosjean was, it was an illegal move as defined by the 'track limits' rule, and that rule should've been upheld accordingly.  (Ironically, Grosjean himself was involved in something similar in Hungary a few years back, when he passed Felipe Massa with a brilliant piece of skill – and was then told he had to relinquish the position because he had gone fractionally outside the limits of the circuit in making his move stick.  As I have said time and again, inconsistent applications of rules ruins racing, and this was another case in point.)

Sainz' teammate Max Verstappen may have made a legal overtake on Grosjean, but his conduct towards his team was less than exemplary.  In the final laps, running eighth with Sainz behind him in ninth, Verstappen looked less and less likely to find a way past Sergio Peréz in front, and his team instructed him to switch with Sainz so the other driver could have a go at getting past the Force India and claiming seventh place for the team.  Verstappen refused.  In this instance, his team boss Franz Tost later said that Verstappen was right to ignore the orders, but I wonder what kind of precedent this sets within that team.

Verstappen's engineer asked him twice to swap places with Sainz.  When Verstappen remonstrated after the first request, the response from the pit wall was a curt "Max, just do it."  How did Verstappen know that this order wasn't for a more serious reason?  Contrast his petulance with Hamilton's professionalism in Monza; a few laps before the end of the race, when he seemed to be cruising to certain victory, Hamilton's race engineer instructed him to pick up the pace and pull out a further gap to Vettel in second place behind him.  "Don't ask questions, just do it – we'll explain all later" said Hamilton's engineer.  The Championship leader complied, without hesitation.  He could obviously tell that the team knew something he didn't (we later found out they had been made aware of an issue, and were anticipating a potential time Penalty which could have taken the win away from Hamilton unless he finished more than twenty seconds ahead of Vettel), and that the situation was urgent.  He responded in a calm, professional manner, doing what was asked of him and securing maximum points for himself and the team.

Verstappen, on the other hand, was supremely lucky.  As it turned out, nothing bad happened as a result of his insubordination (not in terms of the race result, anyway), but how was he to know at the time that there wasn't something more serious behind that request?  The endorsement of his actions by Franz Tost as well makes the situation worse, in my mind.  It has set a precedent at Toro Rosso for ignoring the team, if you think you know best, and just ploughing your own furrow.  Don't expect Sainz to do his team any favours in future Grand Prix after that.  Might that end up hurting their points tally, come the end of the season?  I wouldn't rule it out.

Ultimately, one of biggest deciding factors for those mid-to-lower grid teams was the timing of the Safety Car.  In my view, the Safety Car spent too much time on-track in Singapore today; we could quite easily have had a couple of laps fewer behind the Safety Car on both of the occasions it was called into action.  In the first incident (when Massa and Hulkenberg hit each other), the initial response from Race Control was a Virtual Safety Car.

Now, I like the idea of the Virtual Safety Car.  I see what they are trying to do here, and I think it is laudable.  You control the pace of the cars and allow marshals time to clear the track without bunching up the field too much and having all that nonsense of backmarkers unlapping themselves taking up time.  But it is fairly clear quite early on whether an incident is serious enough to warrant the use of the real Safety Car – especially on a street circuit – and if it is we need to see the Safety Car come out much sooner.  In this instance, we wasted several laps under Virtual Safety Car conditions before Race Control realised the shunt had been bigger than that and plumped for the real Safety Car anyway.

In the second Safety Car period, it was brought out straight away, in response to a bizarre situation of a member of the public casually sauntering along the track.  That was totally fair enough, of course – but long after he'd disappeared off the scene, we were still trundling around behind the Safety Car, as backmarkers unlapped themselves (or, in the case of Manor F1 debutant Alex Rossi, didn't quite), and the pack shuffled itself into order.

This ended up being the root cause of much of the late drama in the race (including the Toro Rosso brouhaha I have mentioned above, as well as a collision between Pastor Maldonado and Jenson Button), as the cars bunched up behind the Safety Car and were held up from restarting the race.  My opinion is the racing could've resumed a couple of laps sooner (at least), and the luck of simply being in the right place at the right time when the Safety Car is deployed (always a factor to some extent, of course, due to the nature of racing) would've had a less significant influence on the outcome of the race than it ended up having.

Next week, in Japan, it will be very interesting to see whether Mercedes return to their usual dominance of proceedings, or whether Ferrari's new upgrades will continue to shine.  My feeling is Mercedes will be back on top, but Ferrari will be closer to them in the past; Red Bull will fade away after being very competitive in Singapore (which is one of their favourite tracks); and we will see yet more inconsistent rules and Penalties unfairly influencing the racing action.

#F1 in Spa

Apologies for being a little late with a post about Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps – and also for having missed writing about the last couple of races altogether.

Spa is a classic circuit, and always a favourite with the fans.  Sadly, this probably means its days are numbered – like Monza's, Hockenheim's, etc. – so it can make way for another brand new sterile complex in the middle of nowhere in a country where no one's heard of Formula 1.  (But that's a rant for another time…)

Lewis Hamilton, as he has been practically all of this season, was sublime in Belgium.  He has his third World Championship all but in the bag already – it will take an extraordinary set of circumstances now for him not to win it again this year.  Teammate Nico Rosberg, by comparison, is lacking in confidence and doesn't truly believe he can compete with Hamilton on an equal footing.  We are seeing this especially at race starts – the Mercedes is not the quickest car off the line, but Rosberg's starting in the past few Grands Prix has been abysmal.  In Belgium, he slipped from a front row grid slot down to about fifth, being overtaken by several slower cars behind him.

I think the only thing that will 'save' Rosberg now, if he ever wants to be a World Champion, is to change teams.  If he stays at Mercedes, and continues to partner Hamilton, he will always feel outclassed – and so, he will always be outclassed.

Another team where is noticeably better than the other is Lotus, who had their best race for quite some time at Spa.  Following a dismal 2014, their car this year has been quite a lot better, but they haven't really been able to recapture the form they showed in 2012 and 2013, when Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean were both podium regulars.  Grosjean's inspired drive in Belgium was his and the team's best result, and first podium finish, since the USA Grand Prix in Austin in 2013 and it was good to see him back on the podium after all this time, beaming from ear to ear and enjoying to the full a thoroughly well-deserved third place.

I have long considered Grosjean to be a very talented driver, and always felt he would 'come good' even during his troubled period when most dismissed him as a 'first lap nutcase' (in the words of Mark Webber, who was then driving for Red Bull – when the chip on his shoulder didn't slow him down too much).  But, as I have said before, Lotus are continually suffering from only having one driver who seems able to compete for points on a regular basis.

It remains a source of confusion for me that, of the two Lotus drivers, Pastor Maldonado is the one who is already a race winner, not Grosjean.  But that one win of Maldonado's, from his time with the Williams team, is something of an anomaly compared to the rest of his record in F1.  It's not that Maldonado is without talent – he certainly has his moments, and can be a very quick driver – but his 'moments' are few and far between, and he is far too inconsistent a driver to be of much worth to the Lotus team.  Grosjean has scored 38 points so far this season – more than three times Maldonado's current tally of 12 – and has only retired three times this season, compared to Maldonado's seven retirements.

Grosjean's third place last weekend allowed Lotus to climb to fifth in the Constructors' table, one point above mid-grid rivals Force India – but they're not going to stay there.  Force India have, in Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Pérez, two drivers capable of scoring points regularly; Lotus are relying on one driver to bring home the lion's share of their points, and this is going to end up hurting them in their battle to come out on top of a tightly-packed, highly competitive midfield.

The other issue which dominated the Belgian Grand Prix was tyre failures.  Nico Rosberg's Qualifying (and possibly his confidence for the race the next day, as well) was ruined by a tyre failure, and Sebastian Vettel's dramatic tyre explosion only a couple of laps before the end, as he fought with Grosjean's Lotus for third place, was a big talking point immediately after the race.  The two schools of thought are as follows…

Some people are saying that Ferrari were running the tyre right on its limit by trying to do a one-stop race, and that it was dangerous for them not to bring their driver in and change the tyres instead of letting him drive around on tyres already so old and worn – and also that Vettel was consistently running wide over the kerbs at Eau Rouge in his efforts to keep Grosjean (who was considerable quicker, and on newer tyres) behind him in the final few laps of the race.

On the other hand, Vettel's post-race interview showed him being absolutely livid with Pirelli for the tyre bursting – he said the company keeps making excuses for tyres failing (it was debris, there was a cut, you went wide, etc.), and that these things are to be expected during a Grand Prix race and so Pirelli should make tyres able to cope with them.

Personally, I can see both sides of the coin here.  I think Vettel is right in that the margin of error in the tyres' durability should not be so fine that a single piece of debris, or an adventure on the kerbs, is enough to cause a potentially extremely dangerous accident.  But then, I have long been a vocal and exasperated critic of the disastrous experiment with 'high degradation' Pirelli tyres!  I also think, however, that Vettel claiming (as he did in his interview) that he wasn't running wide, when we clearly saw him on TV doing exactly that several laps in a row, is laughable.

The application of the 'track limits' rule is so sloppy and inconsistent I, frankly, wonder why they bother to have it at all.  The rule refers to 'gaining an advantage' by driving outside the stated limits of the racetrack; if the guy behind you is quicker, and braking later for the corners than you are (as was the case as Grosjean hunted Vettel down in the last part of last weekend's Grand Prix), and you're consistently cutting a corner in order to keep yourself ahead of him (as Vettel did at Eau Rouge), there's no way anybody can say you haven't 'gained an advantage' by doing so!  It is 'an advantage' to stay in third instead of slipping to fourth place – and Vettel should have been punished by the stewards for going outside the track limits in order to keep from losing the place to Grosjean.

#F1 – Mercedes Pit-iful in Monaco

What a screw-up!  Lewis Hamilton was certain to win the Monaco Grand Prix today – until, only a few laps from the end, Mercedes pitted him under the Safety Car, and caused him to be fed back into the train of cars in third place, behind teammate Nico Rosberg and Ferrari's Sesbastian Vettel.

The reasoning behind this baffling strategic call by Mercedes has not yet come out.  Mercedes have apologised, and they claim they 'got the numbers wrong', thinking they had enough time to get Hamilton back out in the lead after stopping for tyres.  But why did they pit him at all?  Even if he'd had a lead of over a minute, he didn't need new tyres, and stopping under the Safety Car was a completely unnecessary risk.  (The teams' explanation they worried Hamilton would be vulnerable if Vettel stopped for new tyres under the Safety Car strikes me as little more than ex post facto excuse-making; had Hamilton stayed out, he could've controlled the race to end once the Safety Car came in, and even if Vettel had been quicker on new tyres Rosberg was between them acting as a cushion for Hamilton – on the tight, twisty Monaco street circuit, where it is notoriously difficult to overtake, there is no way Vettel would've caught up to the lead with only a few laps to go.)

My reading of the situation is that teams normally see a Safety Car period as an opportunity to take a 'free' pit stop; it allows them to bring a car in for fresh tyres, but without losing time relative to the other runners on-track, as the Safety Car bunches the whole field up and control the pace.  Teams try to react to this quickly, in order to make the most of this opportunity, and I think that is what Mercedes did today – they pitted Hamilton because that is their default reaction as soon as they see that the Safety Car has been deployed.  In other words, it was a knee-jerk reaction, not a strategic decision; another example of Mercedes switching off tactically, and resting on their laurels of having the fastest car a little too much.

In the end, the decision didn't hurt the Mercedes team too much – their drivers finished in first and third, instead of the first and second places they would have been in line to get, so they only ceded three points to Ferrari in that respect.  But in the individual Drivers' Championship, Hamilton dropped points to his closest rival, instead of extending his lead – that has to hurt.

The important thing for Hamilton, though, is how he responds to this.  His interview on the podium was rather more mature and gracious than I had expected from a driver who has a reputation for 'wearing his heart on his sleeve' (read: 'sulking') when things get difficult for him.  In private, though, Hamilton will be raging – and he has every right to! – but he has to try and channel that energy positively.

If Hamilton starts to see himself as a victim, he will only make things worse for himself.  The inevitable paranoid nonsense has been bandied about social media by 'fans' – but the idea that the Mercedes team did this deliberately (either of their own volition, or at Rosberg's behest) is patently absurd.  As I wrote last year (also during the Monaco Grand Prix, funnily enough) on a very similar topic:

To allow oneself to slip into a 'victim' mentality is one of the worst things that can happen to a world-class sportsman.  If Hamilton starts to believe he is the subject of some conspiracy within the Mercedes AMG F1 team, he will effectively derail his hopes of claiming a second Word Drivers' Championship victory this season; he will become paranoid and resentful, and he will start to kick against his team instead of working with them, and he will cease to make calm, rational decisions on the track, instead allowing himself to become motivated by revenge and an attempt to vindicate himself. 

… 

Luck plays a part in any sport.  Part of being a successful sportsman is the acceptance that you don't always get the rub of the green, and sometimes things will go against you; those who are at the very top of their game, in any area, are those who deal with that the best, and getting sucked into the downward psychological spiral of a 'siege' mentality is not the way to do that.

Speaking of luck, d'you know who doesn't have any?  Pastor Maldonado.  The Lotus driver still has not taken the chequered flag in any of this season's six races so far; I know I've brought this up before, but I really do wonder how much longer the team will persist with him.  After Qualifying yesterday, I predicted:

Maldonado may’ve out-qualified Grosjean for once – but what’s the betting he does something stupid, and it’s Romain who delivers points? #F1

— Kit Marsden (@manek43509) May 23, 2015 

And so it proved.  Both Lotus drivers looked extremely quick throughout free practice, and in Qualifying…  In the race, however, it was a different story – Grosjean kept himself out of trouble, and despite a five-place grid penalty which left him start in fifteenth, he gradually inched his way up into the lower end of the points positions, and would've stayed there had be not been rammed from behind by the Toro Rosso of Max Verstappen (the incident which precipitated Mercedes' pigs ear pitstops!).  Maldonado, on the other hand, was involved in yet another incident, and adds yet another DNF to his rather unimpressive record.

It is easy to say that this incident was not entirely Maldonado's fault – indeed it is easy to say that for many of the incidents which the Venezuelan has been involved in, and there certainly is some truth in that – but he hasn't finished a single race this year, and that record speaks for itself.  There's only so much bad fortune anyone can have, before you start to wonder whether there's a reason all that bad luck keeps happening to the same guy…

The fact of the matter is, good drivers don't constantly put themselves in situations where bad things can happen to them.  They stay out of trouble.  Maldonado is the opposite of this – his bull-in-a-china-shop approach makes him a magnet for on-track incidents, and the result is no points, and a whole lot of repairs for the team to do.  The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that he will be replaced before the season's even over.

But over at McLaren, the long wait for points is finally over, as Jenson Button scored four points for his eighth place finish today.  They told us to wait until Spain – which was another damp squib for them – but this time out in Monaco, they finally got on the scoresheet.  Can it last, though?  The hard-to-overtake nature of the Monte Carlo street circuit will have helped them out a lot, and Canada (next time out) will be a very different proposition; I doubt Button will be able to keep a Toro Rosso or a Lotus behind him for so many laps at a track like that, they way he managed to this afternoon.  Canada could well bring McLaren down to earth with a bump!

#F1 – Too little, too late for Rosberg?

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.

#F1 – Why does it always Bahrain on me?

When I wrote about last week's Chinese Grand Prix, the focus was entirely on Nico Rosberg's psychological struggles, and how disadvantaged he's been compared to his teammate so far this season.  In Bahrain, Rosberg seemed happier and more relaxed – and as a consequence, he drove better.  He still had to settle for third in the end, though…

Hamilton was relatively comfortable throughout the race, and he led most of the laps.  Ultimately, I don't think the win was ever in doubt, for him.  However, Ferrari showed that their resurgence in Malaysia at the start of the month was not a flash in the pan – they really have got a package which can challenge Mercedes, and two drivers capable of scoring points and podium finishes.  That makes them genuinely threatening.

In the first three races of this year, it has been Sebastian Vettel who has been doing the business for Ferrari, taking the fight to the Mercedes of Hamilton and Rosberg; Kimi Räikkönen, by contrast, has been a little disappointing – often through no fault of his own.  It has been interesting to see Vettel in this role of 'challenger', actually, after he was so frequently criticised during his time at Red Bull as being too reliant on Adrian Newey's masterful engineering, and only being so dominant by dint of having by far the best car on the track.  This theory was borne out last year when Red Bull were no longer the dominant team, and Vettel seemed to fall away as his young teammate Daniel Ricciardo was the one to cease victory from Mercedes on a few occasions.

This season, however, Vettel has definitely answered his critics – and emphatically.  This year's Ferrari is a very good car, but it still plays a meek second fiddle to the might of the Mercedes.  Vettel has been able to match Mercedes, and beat them, in the second-best car.  The answer is that Vettel is not a race winner only when he has the best car – but he is a race winner when he has a car in which he feel comfortable.  Last year's Red Bull was not a car Vettel enjoyed driving, and his performances demonstrated that; at Ferrari, Vettel feels happier, and so he is driving better.

Räikkönen, too, feels much better in this year's Ferrari than he did in last year's car – and this time out, he showed that he is also a threat to the pace-setters at Mercedes.  Räikkönen was his usual, laconic self – but I expect that he will secretly be quite pleased to be back on the podium, and to seem more on level terms with a multiple World Championship-winning teammate in a way he never managed when he was paired with Fernando Alonso at Ferrari last season.

Further down the order, Williams' race was compromised by Felipe Massa's failure to launch for the formation lap, but Valteri Bottas drove an excellent race to keep Vettel behind him and finish fourth.  Daniel Ricciardo is still the real deal, hauling the Red Bull into sixth place where its Renault engine doesn't really deserve to be.  However, his teammate Daniil Kvyat has had a troubled start to this season, with the Bahrain Grand Prix being no exception, which leads me to question Red Bull's strategy of promoting young drivers from their junior programme so soon – I'm not sure whether Kvyat wouldn't have benefited more from a second season at Toro Rosso, rather than being fast-tracked into the senior team, with all the added pressure that entails, at just twenty years old.

For Lotus, a vastly improved car and a switch from Renault engines to Mercedes engines has brought more consistent points finishes – but only from one driver.  Romain Grosjean has brought home all the team's points so far, while Pastor Maldonado has failed to finish a single race this year.  Now that Lotus have a competitive car again, they need two competitive drivers if they are to amass points and realise their potential – there is only so long that Maldonado's erratic ways can be tolerated by a team fighting in a packed midfield.

Finally, I have felt for a long time that it is not right to try and make Formula One 'more exciting' artificially.  Obviously, we all hope races will be exciting – but occasionally they aren't, and that's just a part of the sport.  Much was made of the spectacle created by titanium skid plates sparking against the tarmac during the Bahrain Grand Prix – this does have a practical function, but it is also true that this was a decision made with improving 'the show' in mind.  I am quoted in this BBC Sport article on the topic (rather amusingly described as 'a purist' – they must've read my previous F1 posts!) which goes into more detail in this area.  I will admit that the sparks did look pretty awesome – what worries me, though, is that sparks cease to be a by-product of parts of the car touching the track surface for whatever reason, and start to become an aim in themselves…

If engineers are being required by the rules of the sport to design and create cars which look good, it starts to become theatre, not racing.  Racing cars should be designed to go as quickly as possible (within the rules), and however they look is how they look.  All that matters is the performance.  If designers have to consider aesthetics as well, this could impact negatively on the performance and therefore on the quality of the racing, and this would not be a good thing.

The 'look' of the race should always be secondary to the actual competition of racing; if sparking and other excitement is genuine, that's great – but if it isn't, we shouldn't try to add it in artificially.

#F1: Monza Bonanza

It has been my goal for a while, now, to post a short write-up of each Grand Prix in the days following it (or, at least, before Qualifying for the next race starts!), even if nothing truly remarkable has happened, as some kind of 'regular feature' on this Blog.  Although, in all likelihood, it is doubtful whether I shall successfully be able to navigate this small, dreamlike coracle of prose between the Scylla and Charybdis of work commitments and laziness, I am going to attempt it nonetheless - and therefore humbly set out my thoughts on yesterday's Italian Grand Prix in Monza herein…

Hamilton back to his best

I wrote here after Monaco about how important it is for Lewis Hamilton not to let himself get dragged into a downward psychological spiral of victimhood, and to carry on racing his way rather than always comparing his fortunes on-track with Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg's.  It was clear that Hamilton was not happy after what happened between himself and Rosberg on the first lap in Belgium two weeks ago, so I was very pleased to see that he seemed to have put that behind him as he came to Italy.

Hamilton was too much for Rosberg in Qualifying in Monza, and took a brilliant Pole position.  His start was poor, and he ended up chasing the race in fourth place; it would've been easy, at this point, to get disheartened again, and to turn into Mario Balotelli - "why always me?"

Thankfully, Hamilton didn't let this happen - he put the disappointments of the start behind him, knuckled down and set about the task of reeling in Rosberg's lead.  After the first lap, Hamilton was flawless; he didn't do a thing wrong as he hunted down Rosberg, and it was one of the most dominant and complete performances I have seen from him recently.  (The speculation that Mercedes 'ordered' Rosberg to give way to Hamilton as 'punishment' for the incident at Spa is so inordinately stupid that I shan't address it here.)

If Hamilton goes on to win the Championship this year, this race at Monza will be looked on as a turning point in the season; I hope his new positivity continues as we go to Singapore in two weeks time.

Rosberg not a bad egg

The booing of Nico Rosberg on the Podium - both last time out in Belgium, and again in Italy yesterday - is simply not on.  He is a racing driver, paid to deliver results for his team, and at the moment he is leading the Championship - fair play to him.

Personally, I do think it would be brilliant to see a British driver win the title again, and there is no question that Hamilton has the means to overhaul Rosberg's lead in the remaining races.  However, if Rosberg is crowned World Champion after the final race in Abu Dhabi, he will have won the title on merit and he will be a worthy Champion.

Penalty precedents

Another talking-point after yesterday's race was the five second time Penalty given to Kevin Magnussen by the Stewards after they deemed he had 'forced' Valtteri Bottas off the track while defending his position from Bottas' overtaking manoeuvre into the Turn 1 chicane.  I disagreed with this decision, and took issue with the Penalty for two reasons.

Firstly, the Penalty was issued as a 'Five Second Stop/Go Penalty' - ie. to be taken in the Pit Lane - but it was decided that, as no further Pit Stops were planned (Monza is traditionally a one-stop race), the five seconds could simply be added to Magnussen's overall finishing time.  In my view, this changes the nature of the Penalty - and, therefore, changes the nature of the race.  The Stop/Go Penalty is about more than just the time you lose in the Pit Lane - the time you spend stationary puts you at a different place on the track, possibly amongst different cars also fighting for position.  The result of this is a different type of race.  Simply adding the time on at the end of the Grand Prix removes this element of uncertainty, and turns the race into something of a time-trial event for the cars involved; Formula 1 has never been about that.

Secondly, the Penalty itself was overly harsh on Magnussen, who was defending his line from Bottas' oncoming Williams.  Neither car was driving dangerously (unlike Esteban Guttiérez' weaving around on the straight when he hit Romain Grosjean's Lotus and gave himself a puncture), it was simply a 'racing incident' - the sort of thing which is perhaps to be expected when cars are fighting for position on a race track.  I worry that the Stewards will set a precedent for giving Penalties for ever more minor incidents, thus making the drivers more cautious in their approach, reducing overtaking and on-track battles and sterilising Grand Prix racing.

It is, perhaps, ironic that this creeping trend towards risk aversion comes at the same time as a whole new slew of ridiculous proposals to 'make the sport more exciting'.  I have almost lost count of the number of time I have written about how moronic it is to try and 'engineer' and 'create' drama in motorsport, and how making the racing more artificial is an insult to the fans.

We were treated to some fantastic on-track action at Monza yesterday, from the likes of Bottas and Magnussen, as well as Jenson Button, Sergio Pérez, Felipe Massa and Daniel Ricciardo - that the powers-that-be in F1 could seek to discourage this sort of wheel-to-wheel racing through ever more petty Penalties, while at the same time hoping to manufacture more fake 'excitement' is mind-boggling.  The racing we saw yesterday was raw and real, not 'created for our entertainment' by titanium skid-blocks and tyres which barely last five laps; I would hate a situation to develop where the only overtaking moves we ever see are DRS-assisted in specially designated zones, and racing instinct has been neutered by the fear of incurring punishment for being too bold.

Ricciardo a rising star

Each time I see Daniel Ricciardo race, I am more impressed by him than I was the last time.  He is a master at seeing space on the track, reading situations and picking braking points, and he is a joy to watch in the car.  Given the right car, he will go on winning races for a long time to come.

I confess I entertained the possibility that Ricciardo's appointment at Red Bull (a 'promotion', if you like, from the junior Toro Rosso team) was in order to provide four-time World Champion and apple of Helmut Marko's eye Sebastian Vettel with a compliant teammate, already well versed in 'the Red Bull way' of doing things.  Various rumours had circulated last year about the possibility of Fernando Alonso or Kimi Räikkönen stepping into the second Red Bull alongside Vettel, and speculation was rife that Ricciardo was eventually chosen because Vettel had been reluctant to have his status as Red Bull's de facto Number 1 driver challenged by another word-class former Champion.  Given the way the season has gone for him so far, perhaps Vettel is now wishing he did have Räikkönen or Alonso as his teammate, after all…?

The Pit Lane brain drain

If this season has taught us anything, it is the importance of high-ranking technical staff within a Formula 1 team.  Any team which has enjoyed periods of dominance within the sport would not have been able to manage that without a visionary heading up the technical side of the operation - Ross Brawn at Ferrari (and, later on, at his own 'privateer' team), and Adrian Newey at Red Bull are perhaps the best examples in the modern era of Formula 1.  If further proof were needed, however, we need only look at the fortunes of two teams whose fortunes this season could scarcely be more different from their results last year.

Williams have had a dismal time in recent years, and hadn't really produced a car capable of challenging for Podium finishes for ten years.  This year, however, they have reemerged as a serious force in the paddock, and yesterday they overtook Ferrari to claim third place in the Constructors' Championship (that this happened at Ferrari's home race could only have added insult to injury for the veteran Italian marque who haven't been able to produce a decent car since 2009).  The decision of the Williams team to switch to the Mercedes engine for this season was inspired (the Mercedes is easily the best engine in the field), but when it comes to designing a car the capture of Pat Symonds as a technical director is huge, and with him on board Williams have shot back up the standings as a result of his influence.

Contrast this with Lotus, who were, this time last year, the closest challengers to the dominant Red Bulls.  Last year's Lotus was a very well-designed car, even on a much tighter budget than that available to most of the top teams in the paddock, and was particularly remarkable for how kind it was to its tyres.  This year, however, the Lotus team has seen an exodus of talent, with highly-rated designer James Allen leaving to join Ferrari, and star driver Kimi Räikkönen following suit, and team boss Eric Boullier jumping ship to McLaren.  Lotus now find themselves adrift at the back of the field, with a car which looks about as easy to drive as a ride-on lawnmower, and considerably less enjoyable.  In yesterday's race, Romain Grosjean - who finished on the Podium more times than any other non-Red Bull driver in the second half of last season - found himself fighting for most of the race with the Caterhams and Marussias which are generally referred to as the 'back teams'.  How the mighty have fallen!

#F1 - A tyre-anny of Pirelli?

Well, if you're a Formula 1 fan, you'll already be well aware of the debate raging within the sport about Pirelli's current models of race tyres.  (And if you're not a Formula 1 fan, you probably won't enjoy this post that much!)  Red Bull's Dietrich Mateschitz claims that F1 has "nothing to do with real racing any more" and that too much emphasis on tyre-management is ruining the sport - and similar complaints have been heard from some drivers in the field, as well as many of the fans.

I actually raised this issue on this Blog two years ago, in May 2011.  I didn't like the attempts to "engineer" more excitement in the sport, and I used the example of two teams mates - one qualifying in the Top 10, and one starting from the back of the grid, whose final positions in the race ended up almost reversed - to illustrate how I felt the high degradation of the Pirelli tyres were having too much influence on the results of races.

Although I still feel that way about the Pirelli tyres, I can't help but feel that Red Bull are just having a bit of a moan.  For the past three years, Red Bull have had undisputedly the best car, designed by one of the best designers in the business, Adrian Newey.  This year, their car (while still very, very good) comes in behind several of the other teams in a couple of keys areas - one of these areas in the way the car manages the tyres; Lotus, in particular, and also Ferrari to a certain extent, have managed to design a car which is kinder to the tyres than the Red Bull.

What we are seeing from Red Bull now, of course, is nothing less than the petulance and querulousness I would expect.  Every team designs their car to the same set of regulations, so in that respect everybody starts from an equal footing - rather than accepting that, on this occasion, the chaps at Lotus have done a better job than they did, and trying to improve their own car through upgrades as the season goes on, Red Bull have demanded that the tyres which all the teams have to use be changed to suit them.

As far as I'm concerned, this cannot be allowed to happen.  Much as I would prefer tyres which aren't so unpredictable, it would not be right to change things part-way through a season, just because one of the teams has thrown their toys out of the pram.  By making the tyres more Red Bull-friendly, Pirelli will be effectively making life harder for Lotus and Ferrari - in this situation, it could be Pirelli who "choose" who they want to win the Championship this year.

No, having started out with these high-degradation tyres, we must stick with them for a whole season.  By all means, change them for next season (when the regulations on engines and car design will be significantly altered anyway, and all the teams will be starting again from scratch) - but changing the tyres midway through the year would be like changing the rules of football to allow goalkeepers to handle the ball outside the penalty area, just because one of the Premier League teams reckon they'd have a better chance of winning if that rule were different.  Red Bull need to be told that if you're not doing well enough within the current regulations to win, you simply have to try harder, or take a different approach - not ask the sport's governing body to change the rules to help make it easier for you!

If Pirelli do change their tyres, in response to Red Bull's complaints, how much more are we going to see of teams campaigning for changes to rules they don't like?  In the end, Caterham will kick up an almighty fuss and demand that the points system be changed so that you can only score points if you drive a green car, meaning that they'll end up as Champions unless all the other teams repaint.

#F1 - Red Bull in Abu Dhabi

Yesterday's Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi was a very exciting race indeed - one of the classics, in my opinion.  It was a race which had everything - and it was a race in which we learnt a lot too, I felt.

I was impressed with Kimi Räikkönen and the Lotus team, of course, getting the win which they fully deserved (indeed, I believe that they have actually deserved more wins and podium finishes than they've achieved this year) and I was impressed with Lewis Hamilton, who was supreme on-track, and mature and gracious off-track.

I was unimpressed with almost everything about Red Bull's race weekend, however; I felt they really showed their true colours over this weekend, and they looked like a team who are desperate.  Over the course of the race, as more and more things went wrong for them, they became more and more desperate, and more and more determined to win, at any cost.

The arrogance of Red Bull Racing is something I should've expected - but which somehow still managed to shock me.  Everything that could go wrong for them, did, and they rushed around plugging leaks and pulling strings, refusing to accept that, maybe, this just wasn't their day.

Let's start with Mark Webber.  Webber has gone down in my estimations already this year, following interviews in which he smeared other drivers (particularly Romain Grosjean) and tried to shift blame for poor performances and incidents in races.  This trend continued in Abu Dhabi.

Webber started from the front row, but after his customary poor start, he ended up fifth by the end of the first lap, and spent the rest of the race trying to make up ground.  On Lap 23, Webber was trying to take third place away from Williams' Pastor Maldonado, but in trying to pass him around the outside of the corner, touched his wheels and spun his car onto the run-off area.  I've been pretty critical of Maldonado's driving, in the past, but it's easy to see that it is Webber who's to blame here - as BBC commentator (and former F1 race winner) David Coulthard said at the time:

"You can't just go 'round the outside, and expect the car on the inside to disappear!"

Webber turned in on Maldonado's car, even though he knew he was there.  He later radioed back to his team, saying something like "all the fault of Maldonado" - which is a bit rich, quite frankly, coming on the back of his comments about other drivers.  As the BBC's technical expert, Gary Anderson pointed out:

"If that were Romain Grosjean, we'd be shouting about what a big mistake he's just made.  Mark Webber did that all himself!"

Anderson is right - some drivers (Grosjean, yes, and indeed Maldonado himself - I would also throw Michael Schumacher into that mix) would have taken a lot of stick for doing what Webber did there, and would probably also have received a penalty from the Stewards.  And yet, Webber expects that, just because he's a Red Bull driver, he can shift the blame, and not take responsibility for his own on-track mistakes, born out of desperation and a desire to impress his team, whatever the cost.

Following that incident, Webber ended up down in seventh place, behind Ferrari's Felipe Massa.  Trying, again, to rush past and gain back his lost positions, Webber tried the same move, at the same place, to get past Massa - and made the same mistake again!

Only three laps later, on Lap 26, Webber again tries to overtake around the outside, and again touches wheels with the car on the inside (this time, that's Massa's Ferrari).  Webber runs off the track, and rejoins ahead of Massa, but knows he will have to give the place back after passing Massa outside of the confines of the circuit - however, on rejoining the track so close in front of Massa, he forces the Ferrari driver to take avoiding action, which in turn causes him to spin on the track!

Webber then doesn't give the place back to Massa, who has lost several more positions following his spin, and continues to race in sixth place.  However, it was pretty clear to me that Massa's spin was as a direct result of Webber rejoining the circuit after having hit the Ferrari in trying to overtake, and Red Bull should have been handed a penalty for that incident - or, if not for that incident, or the one before with Maldonado, then certainly for the two of them combined, as Webber had done the same thing to two different drivers, and, in my opinion, needed to be taught a lesson.  The fact that no penalties were given for any of these incidents was poor, in my opinion, and will only serve to strengthen Red Bull's view of themselves as being above the law in Formula 1.

On the topic of "passing outside the confines of the track", let's now turn our attention to Sebastian Vettel.  Having been disqualified from Saturday's Qualifying for a fuel irregularity (a nice example of consistency from the Stewards, who gave Lewis Hamilton the same penalty for the same problem earlier in the year), Vettel started from the Pit Lane on Sunday, and had to work his way up through the field from the very back.  Aided and abetted by fresh tyres, a change of gear ratios, a generous helping of Safety Car, and the fact that the first eight car (or so) he'd have to pass were positively gastropodian in comparison with his Red Bull, Vettel made good progress, and quickly climbed towards the front of the pack.

As early as Lap 16, however, Vettel found himself with a serious challenge, in the form of Romain Grosjean.  Having had an early puncture (from purely a racing incident, I am at pains to point out), Grosjean also found himself out of position, towards the back of the pack, with a lot of overtaking work to do.  Driving the a car identical to the one which would eventually go on to win this race, Grosjean (like Vettel) was considerably faster than those around him, down in 17th place.

Vettel launched down the inside at Turn 8, and thought he had completed the pass, but Grosjean came back at him, and was still ahead on the next straight.  Then, as Grosjean and Vettel drove down the straight together, with barely a hair's breadth between the back of the Lotus and the front of the Red Bull, Vettel deliberately pulls to one side, off the track, accelerates, and passes Grosjean's car, with all four of his wheels outside the painted white lines which define the track area to be used to be racing.

This was not a racing incident, or a mistake, or anything like that - Vettel knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew it was outside the rules.  He deliberately cheated - he gained an advantage by going off the track, and perhaps hoped that, because he drives for Red Bull, he would be allowed to get away with it.  However, the Lotus team radioed to their driver immediately, telling Grosjean that they would "be talking to Charlie [Whiting, Race Director] about that" and Vettel then gave the position back to Grosjean without any prompting from the Stewards, before re-passing him in a more legal manner, which is as clear an admission of guilt from Red Bull as any.

Sticking with Vettel, let's jump back to Lap 12, which was during the first period under the Safety Car. Vettel, at this point, was in 12th place, behind Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso.  Ricciardo was trying to keep his tyres warm, while running comparatively slowing behind the Safety Car, and Vettel was caught out by him.  Vettel failed to break to avoid the weaving Toro Rosso, and ended up ploughing straight through a marker put by the side of the track, causing further hurt to his already damaged front wing.  Vettel radioed to his team:

"What is he doing?!  He keeps stopping all the time!"

On the radio, Vettel sounded petulant and childish, angry with Ricciardo for something which wasn't really the Toro Rosso driver's fault.  Again, he seemed to feel that, as a Red Bull driver, these things were meant to happen to someone else, not to him, and he couldn't take the fact that, for once, things weren't all going his way.

As David Coulthard pointed in his commentary (actually when referring to an earlier incident with Bruno Senna, which was where the initial damage to Vettel's win occurred):

"I don't think you can apportion blame here, but it's really the responsibility of the car behind to keep his nose clean."

Ricciardo didn't actually do anything wrong - he was weaving a lot, and was driving slower than normal, yes, but that is to be expected when the Safety Car is out, leading a long line of cars around the circuit at considerably slower speeds than when they're racing for real, and he didn't contravene the rules about following the Safety Car at all.

We've seen Vettel have issues with the re-start when behind the Safety Car before, even when he's been at the front.  Perhaps he should just accept that this is actually something at which he's not the very best?

Of course, we can hope, but I don't think we will.  All of the examples which I have laid out here demonstrate how Red Bull, and their drivers, see themselves as invincible, and untouchable.  And when things don't go their way, they either cheat and bend the rules to suit themselves, or they become stroppy and angry, and throw a hissy fit until they get what they want.

When Red Bull win, it's entirely down to their brilliance - but when they don't, it's always somebody else's fault.

#F1 - Grosjean until proven innocent?!

Poor old Romain Grosjean - he just cannot get a break!

This weekend, the young French driver was under fire again, for yet another collision on the first lap - this time, a tangle with Mark Webber into the first corner at last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix.  And of course, out came the detractors, endlessly repeating that tired old statistic of "eight first-lap crashes this year" and calling for all kinds of fierce and terrible retribution...  During his post-race interview, Webber claimed that Grosjean should have another ban from the sport, while former F1 driver and Sky Sports pundit Johnny Herbert believes that Lotus should sack Grosjean.

I've already debunked the "eight crashes this year" thing, explaining a few weeks ago how this is a false figure when not all of those crashes were Grosjean's fault, so I shan't go into that now.

I don't condone Grosjean's first-corner driving at Suzuka, even though I'm still not entirely convinced by his culpability - from some views it appears to be Grosjean's fault, but other camera angles make it look like Webber cuts across the front of Grosjean a little sharply.

I'm pleased to see not all commentators are jumping on the Grosjean-bashing bandwagon.  The BBC's technical analyst Gary Anderson wrote in his column that the pressure of having to prove that he wouldn't crash got to Grosjean, and caused the incident, while Sky's Martin Brundle Tweeted that Grosjean deserves his seat in F1 next year:

@sheumais63 yes Grosjean should be in F1 2013 providing he can quickly sort this first lap issue.He's not intentionally reckless and is fast
— Martin Brundle(@MBrundleF1) October 8, 2012

But none of that is the point, really.

What concerns me is that Grosjean cannot get a fair trial any more.

People assume he is going to crash - because he's Romain Grosjean, and that's what he does.  And when he is involved in an incident, people assume it's his fault.  And then he gets given a harsher penalty than other drivers would receive for the same transgression.

In my view, that's not justice - or discipline.  That's a witch-hunt.