Well, a slightly different race to the Nurburgring, I did have to smile wryly when Alonso landed on pole, and wasn’t really too surprised that he, rightly or wrongly, had some kind of penalty imposed on him. As Alex pointed out we all lost out with Alonso’s demotion, except for him who pulled 2 points out of qualifying instead of the one he would have got.

In the race Alex and Nick landed very similar points, 2 for Raikkonen and 1 for Kovalainen, with Alex taking another one for Kubica and Nick one for Rosberg. Fourstar and myself fared marginally better, with us both taking 1 each for Hamilton and Raikkonen and 2 for Rosberg, with Fourstar grabbing another one for Heidfeld and myself one for Kubica and two for Kovalainen.

Round 11

1 Bearded Stew 7
2 Alex 6
3 Fourstar 5
4 Nick 4

As we head into the summer break the championship is looking very much like the drivers championship with Nick out in front, but not out of touch,

Championship

1 Nick 67
2 Alex 57
3 Bearded Stew 55
4 Fourstar 44

In contrast to the Nurburgring, and a bit of a return to the norm, the podium positions were decided by the first corner. We saw Raikkonen taking Heideld at the start and then scampering after Hamilton, and getting pretty close too. Raikkonen again showing good long distance pace, and pushing Hamilton hard, Hamilton did well to keep him at bay.

Kovalainen finished in the points for the 5th time in the last six races, its good to see him scoring consistently, Rosberg in the points again, where he should be I reckon, but has been a bit out of place recently. Schumacher has a good points finish for Toyota. Alonso eventually managed to get past Schumacher to take the fourth place, probably the best he was going to do in the circumstances, but he did fight all the way around.

The only one missing from the usual suspects at the top was Massa, dragging his Ferrari home in 13th behind both Renaults, both Red Bulls and both Toyotas.

Honda still performing badly, although Barrichello did finish, Button did not. I would be surprised if we saw any decent form from them this year now.

On the commentary side of things surely James Allen must cringe every time they replay Button winning last year.

This year Damon Hill was in the second seat and I thought he did a good job, maybe a bit hesitant to fill in dead air time, with some characteristic Hill pauses mid sentence but by about half way it seemed like he knew what he was going say before he said and it all flowed much better.
Great to have him around though, and hear his enthusiasm. Especially at a track where he had some of his most momentous races.

The most significant moment for me though was just before the first round of pit stops. James was, typically it has to be said, blabbering on about Schumacher’s position for next year and whether he would be on the grid and actually asked Hill what he thought about it, a direct question, but as he paused for Damon to answer, Damon burst in with a description of the action in the pits almost taking over the lead commentary himself, and not ever answering James question as far as I could tell. Great stuff.

Don’t forget, through the summer break, keep it SofaF1.