SofaF1

I felt this morning that something was missing. Then I remembered: Imola. It had familiarly begun the European season in recent years, and I had forgotten that it had now been erased from the calendar. It’s no coincidence that since Schumacher has retired there is only one German and one Italian race, and the prospect of two Spanish ones next year. Fans, and Bernie, are fickle. Should we really pamper to the whims of people who will stop watching the sport as soon as their driver leaves? Are they really watching the sport, anyway, or just following a celebrity-cult? The pictures of the bemused fans in the Spanish grandstand two weeks ago were interesting. Alonso wasn’t winning. They had no idea what was happening. Yes, some of them, spurred on by the achievements of Alonso, have become genuinely interested in the sport. But most of them are just there for the ride. I, personally, am missing what was one of my favourite circuits, with a great corner, and its great name: Acqua Minerale.

So, Christijan Albers has finally said what we’re all thinking: the switch to Michelins has hurt a lot of drivers, but advantaged rookies. Read the story here. Drivers like Lewis Hamilton have just arrived and driven what they’ve been given, but the old boys were used to either the Michelins or last year’s Bridgestones, and are finding it hard to adapt. Renault virtually built their car around the Michelins and Alonso’s driving style, thus making his switch to McLaren hard to handle. He had always been praised as a driver capable of adapting. By the end of the season we’ll know if this is true. At Ferrari, the car was built mainly with Massa’s input, who had always driven on Bridgestones, leaving Raikkonen out in the cold. Of course, such an explanation sounds too neat. It’s probably a lot more complicated that this. Or it might just be Felipe and Lewis are faster drivers…

So we’re not keen on a change to the F1 race weekend, SofaF1 wants to stick with one race per weekend:

It seems that on raw pace and when everything is going well for all of the drivers and if all of the drivers were in the same car people think that Kimi is the fastest driver that there is out there. So why hasn’t he won a world championship yet?

This is a very dangerous position to be in as a driver because as I remember it that’s what everyone said about Fisi a few years ago. The danger of becoming known as fast but unreliable is one that hangs sound Fisi’s neck. And I’m afraid to say it will probably stay there because in his case it’s probably true.

But in Kimi’s case something different is going on. He is so intractable that we rarely if ever know what exactly is going on. All we know is that some days he’s really fast and some days the car breaks. Kimi says nothing different regardless which invites speculation. None of which is probably right.

So last year the McLaren was unreliable and Ferrari were reliable. Now Kimi goes to Ferrari and Ferrari becomes unreliable. So my prediction is that we will start to hear all of those “car breaker” stories coming to the surface again soon. Why not blame Kimi Ferrari? It’s easier than fixing the problem and Kimi won’t even bother to explain why it’s not true.

Because Massa doesn’t seem to be having so many problems in the last few races people are bound to use that as a comparison. But Massa didn’t finish the first race due to a lack of reliability. So this weeks poll is this: Is the Ferrari unreliable, or is Kimi a car breaker, or both?

There was only one question for Michael Schumacher during the Spanish Grand Prix and that was, “What are you going to do next”? He was asked it hundreds of times and usually gave wishywashy answers. But one time he gave this fantastic response:

“What could be in the future, who knows? If I knew that, I would be doing it.”

I think we have to credit Mark Hughes as the man who first came up with the Hamilton-Monaco myth. I believe it was just after the podium ceremony that James said something like ‘Now we go to Monte Carlo where Lewis Hamilton has never lost’. It’s possible that he came up with this statistic on the fly, but I think it far more likely that our man behind the mask, the power behind the throne, Mark Hughes, looked it up as the race was ending. As soon as he said it Alex and I were hooked, and so, it seems, was everyone else. In Tuesday’s theguardian Alan “Thierry” Henry* said he thinks Lewis Hamilton might win his first race in Monaco, and quoted a clutch of former-champions who think the same. And now autosport.com and itv-f1.com think so too. So, as much as I want Hamilton to win, I’m going to go against the grain with my fiver and say we’ll see the first serious mistake from Lewis at Monaco. He might dump it into a barrier in the race, maybe the first lap, but perhaps more likely is that he’ll overcook it in qualifying and make an error at Ste Devote, Massenet, or the Swimming Pool chicane. He’ll be too confident and complacent, believing all the hype, and then suddenly realise that he’s going too fast, and the barriers are getting too close.

Incidentally, Massa is no Fisichella – we’re all expecting, including Fernando it seems, that he’ll eventually start making mistakes and going slower than Kimi, get dispirited and fall out of the title race. But maybe he won’t?

*I think we should give all F1 people footballing nicknames in order to help our football-intoxicated readers, e.g. Fernando “Alonso” Alonso.

I was reading this post on F1Fanatic about Ross Brawn’s dislike of the Formula 1 coverage when I was motivated to write the following comment. As it was quite long I thought I’d repeat it here:

The problem is that there are two roles in the commentry box. They should be divided up like a newspaper between News and Comment. And Murray used to do News and Martin did Comment. But James, desperately desperately wants to show off how much he knows about F1. It means that both of them end up doing Comment and we don’t have a clue what’s going on! It means that Martin sometimes, feeling embarresed no doubt ends up describing what’s going on. All of their descriptions are far too slow because James has been taking his lead from Martin.

It should be like this:

James: Somethings happening on the track, somethings happening on the track. Something very exciting is happening on the track. Why is it happening on the track?
Martin: Because of x and then y and this is because of…
James: Sorry to cut you off Martin something is happening on the track. Something is happening on the track. Something is happening on the track.

When it is usually like this:

James: This week I had dinner with somebody who told me something that was relevant before this race started.
Martin: Really? That might mean the fuel in the race is going to be x.
James: Well I thought the complete opposite because I’m completely stupid.
Martin: That would be a stupid thing to think.
James: Yeah I know. I’m stupid. I’m stupid. I’m stupid.
Martin: Well while we’ve been speaking about that this is what’s been happening on the track.
James: Let me re-cap everything that’s been happening since the start of the race again, I haven’t done that for 2 minutes and it’s not as if you’ve been watching the whole race or anything and as far as I can tell nothing could possibly be happening now and if it is then it can probably wait a minute or two and I’ll include it in my next recap of everything that’s happened in the race.
Martin: You are stupid.
James: Yes I’m stupid.

Or something like that.

So Lewis Hamilton is leading the world championship after his fourth race in Formula One. You don’t even need to know any statistics to know that this is the greatest Rookie debut of all time. I bet my bold claim after the first race that Hamilton is the next Schumacher isn’t looking so crazy now?

Over at Ferrari a similar story seems to be playing out. Massa is leading Kimi. The key question perhaps is not, “why are the young guys so good”, but instead, “what happened to the old guys”?

I think in the end the answer is going to be be all about tires and expectations. Massa already was on Bridgestones and people were so worried about if Lewis would be able to compete at the front end that they gave him so much training and testing it must have hurt. The two teams probably expected too much of Alonso and Kimi because the adjustment involved such a steep learning curve.

Alonso hinted at it at the beginning of the season saying that perhaps the rookies had an advantage because they were coming to the new compound fresh. At first this seems strange because surely the rookies are trying to learn both. But on the other side the experienced guys know what works for them and so try and get the cars set up in the same way each track. The problem is that they no longer can tell what parts are due to the car and what parts are due to the tires. This means that they are both trying to unlearn some of the instinct they’ve been training themselves to have over the last few years. And that kind of thing can be really unsettling.

Will it change? Well I think so. I think that Kimi has more chance that Alonso to make a difference. Why? Because he’s acknowledging the problem. Just before the Spanish grand prix Kimi was asked, “Fernando Alonso has said that it is not a championship for four people, it is a championship for two – himself and you. What do you think about that?” To which he replied, “It doesn’t look like it exactly. I think you never know. It is going to be a long season and for sure I don’t think it is going to last like this all year. For sure something is going to happen to some drivers and then probably they will lose too many points to get back in the game any more. For sure now it looks very close and I cannot really say what is going to happen in the future. But hopefully we can come out on top.”

At least he’s willing to acknowledge the issue. That’s good point number one. But it’s also the way that he acknowledges it that’s important. We may soon get an outburst from Alonso along the lines of his, “I don’t think the team is fully behind me”. At least that time he had the right to complain he was the leading driver in the team. This time he isn’t and that might make things very hard.

Alonso is a class act so don’t write him off too quickly just expect him to have a tough couple of weeks. Here’s some facts to bear in mind:

McLaren have always been fast at Monaco

Alonso has never been fast at Monaco (he has won but only once. In the all dominant year)

Lewis has raced at Monaco 6 times and he’s never lost.

I think it’s worth a fiver.

Well, another average points tally for us here at SofaF1.

Hamilton was the key for all of us this week, netting myself and Alex a point each and Nick and Fourstar two. Alonso helped everyone out except me with a point for his front row qualifying. Nick and myself grabbed a point each for Alonso in the race and I managed a couple more by keeping Rosberg and Kovalainen in at the tail end of the points, I almost had Schumacher in 8th but fortunately changed my mind! Heidfeld and Raikkonen retiring hurt us all I think!

So after Round 4

Round 4

1 Bearded Stew 4
2 Nick 4
3 Fourstar 3
4 Alex 2

Which means the championship now looks like this, Nick leads but after 4 races even he has only scored 25%!

Championship

1 Nick 20
2 Alex 17
3 Bearded Stew 13
4 Fourstar 12

Well, a bit of an odd race in many way, the highest attrition rate of the year so far, wheelnuts flying off, loose wheels staying on, tyres shredding themselves, mirrors falling out, Massa on fire taking another pole, win and fastest lap!

Coulthard scored well with his Red Bull even though he was having a few problems with his jukebox. Webber’s fuel flap worked this week, but unfortunately not a lot else. Barrichello again beat Button in both qualifying and the race, both of them though were hammered by Sato in the Honda that looks like a Honda, what a result for Super Aguri! I notice Fourstar in particular seemed to be lovin it!

Rosberg too did well to hauling his Williams up into sixth and Kubica replaced Heidfeld in fourth for another good position for BMW. Hamilton again looked pretty together and consistent scoring moves him into the lead of the championship, although there wasn’t much of a fight among the top three after the first corner!

Roll on Monaco, could this be Hamilton’s first win?

There were two things that annoyed me about today’s coverage of qualifying. The first was that Steve Ryder said Hamilton had the ‘moral advantage’ after being faster than Alonso qualifying 2. I’m not exactly sure what he meant. I guess ‘morale’, but probably ‘psychological’. Certainly Hamilton was not morally superior for going faster. The second thing that annoyed me was James Allen saying Massa had pole position, before Alonso had finished his lap. Everyone at the circuit, certainly, and at least me watching, was following Fernando to see what he would do. When James said Massa was on pole I was confused for a second. He was too, it seemed, as he then realised Alonso was doing about to finish his lap – and had been, up to that point, faster than anyone. As it turned out, however, James was right, but for that second I was disorientated. Very annoying.

The beginning of the European season has always been a bit like the season properly getting underway but with this years four week gap it’s almost like the seasons beginning again, this is especially true because it’s almost as though the main protagonists are starting from zero as well. We have a three way tie for the lead of the championship between Alonso, Kimi and Lewis and in fact Massa is only just behind.

So where did we leave the teams in terms of their pecking order? Well the Ferrari’s are slightly faster than the McLarens but passing either car on the track is no easy business. (unless you’re in a BMW – Ed). The teams seem to have had a strategy of filling their senior drivers with more fuel leaving them behind on the grid but hoping to make it work in the race with the slightly better strategy. This worked for the first two races but on the third the senior drivers found it hard to keep up with their heavier cars. The question those who are predicting is: will they continue to fuel them that way around or will they try and put the junior drivers behind to create a buffer zone?

Behind the first four are BMW who are sort of sitting out there in no mans land by themselves. Some have suggested that they made the largest strides during the four week break so they are likely to be sitting here or even pick off some of the weaker drivers from the top two.

Behind them is a clump of teams with only about a tenth between them all. This more than anything else has made our predicting life very difficult. Expect Toyota to do better than Renault in quali but worse than Renault in the race. Honda is anyone’s guess. Super Aguri don’t really have the budget to keep developing the car and it’s an already developed car (end of season Honda from last year) so they are likely to tail off during the season but they are also improving their organisational skills so that might balance it out for now. Red Bull have doubtless improved over the four week break but they are introducing seamless shift gearbox this weekend, something that really plagued the far more organised BMW. They have claimed they have solved the reliability problems but saying you’ve done it is much easier than actually doing it. And finally Williams, after two big crashes they basically abandoned their testing at the Spanish track last week which would have hurt them except for the fact, possibly, that they were the only team from this pack to test here in the winter.

So where does that leave us? It’s anybodys guess! No actually in this case it’s our guess. Carry on.