My background as an F1 fan began in 2000, at the tender age of 6. During the 2000 Belgian GP, I found myself channel hopping in the hope it would quell my Sunday afternoon boredom. The moment I flicked to the F1 Mika Hakkinen was putting the extraordinary move on Michael Schumacher at Les Combes whilst lapping Ricardo Zonta. I was hooked. Hakkinen’s humility in the press conference was astonishing. I was in awe of Hakkinen. He was my first sporting hero. His McLaren replacement, Kimi Raikkonen (Another Finn) amazed me with equal awe. Because of these 2 drivers, I am a massive fan of all Finnish Athletes in any sport. Fast forward 5 years for the greatest race I have ever seen.

The 2005 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka was without doubt the greatest race I have ever seen. For me it was the perfect race. As a massive Kimi Raikkonen fan, I was dejected to see Fernando Alonso take the title in Brazil the race before, but with 2 races to go the constructors championship was still at stake for McLaren and Renault.

A remarkable wet qualifying session meant it was a mixed grid with Ralf Schumacher on pole for Toyota and Jenson Button 2nd; Fisichella was 3rd for Renault. Team Mate Alonso was 16th after getting affected by the heavy rain, so to were Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya, who qualified 17th and 18th. I’d anticipated before the race was that Fisichella would have the measure of Button and the 3-stopping Ralf Schumacher and that While Raikkonen, Alonso and Montoya would fight back to score some points on a track that’s notoriously hard to overtake.

Race day was dry and sunny. The race was primed. I woke up expected a processional race where Fisichella won by a mile. I dragged myself to turn on the TV ready for the race and had my usual pre-race nerves for my idol Raikkonen. The 5 lights went out and Fisichella got a good start and got past Button. Alonso got a flying start and was up to 8th after the first lap, with Raikkonen not far behind. But Raikkonen dropped back after missing the Casio chicane. Montoya moved in front of Raikkonen, but at the final corner tried to pass Jacques Villeneuve around the outside, but went wide and hit the wall. He was out. The Safety car was deployed. All this action on lap 1! I suddenly thought it was going to be an immense race.

Montoya’s retirement meant McLaren had only one driver who could score points, and he was in 13th. Soon after the restart, Alonso passed Christian Klien around the outside and missed his braking point cutting the chicane. He let Klien back past on the final corner and then re-passed him into turn 1, much like Kimi-Lewis at Spa 08. The FIA said Fernando had to let Klien regain the place so Fernando had to pass Klien a 3rd time, but this had allowed Raikkonen to catch up with Alonso who passed Klien into turn 1 soon after.

Up at the front, Ralf Schumacher had pitted on the first of his 3 stops and ended up 8th, behind the charging Raikkonen and Alonso. They were being held up by Michael Schumacher, who had banked on a wet race and had a wet setup and was therefore woefully slow down the straights. Alonso had been looking menacing behind Michael for many laps and made his move into the 180mph 130R around the outside. I couldn’t believe he had done that. That was one of the best passes I had ever seen. Alonso pitted earlier than Michael Schumacher and Raikkonen, who both pitted on the same lap. They came out ahead of Alonso, who had passed David Coulthard for 6th. After the pit stops the top 6 was Fisichella, Button, Webber, Michael Schumacher, Raikkonen and Alonso.

Soon after, Raikkonen passed Michael around the outside at turn 1. I was hugely relieved as he’d being stuck behind Michael for a great deal of laps. Once he’d passed Michael he started chasing down Button and Webber at a rate of 1.5 seconds per lap. Second place now seemed at realistic target for Kimi as Fisichella was almost 20 seconds in the lead. Fisichella was the first to pit and came out a couple of seconds behind Raikkonen, who was now 3rd. Button, Webber and Alonso pitted a few laps later. Raikkonen ran 8 laps longer than Fisichella and 5 laps longer than Button, Webber and Alonso, ending up with a 14-second lead before he pitted. He came out around 7 seconds behind Fisichella with 12 laps to go.

The Top 5 was Fisichella, Raikkonen, Webber, Alonso, and Button. Raikkonen and Alonso had fought through the field sensationally, but their afternoons weren’t over just yet. Alonso passed Webber with an equally sensational move to the one he put on Schumacher through 130R. Webber covered both sides of the narrow Suzuka straight, but Alonso took 2 wheels worth of grass to give him the extra space he needed to complete the stunning overtake. More was to follow, as Raikkonen wasn’t settling for second. He closed the 7-second gap with 4 laps to go. But he was in his dirty air and took a couple of laps to get a move to overtake on Lap 51 of 52. He had a couple of looks on that lap but nothing serious, ontil the start of the final lap that is!

Fisichella had defended a bit too much in the chicane and had compromised his exit. Raikkonen pounced: he used the slipstream of Fisichella to reel him in on the pit straight. Fisichella moved right, Raikkonen left. Fisichella moved back to the left to cover off Kimi but Kimi jolted further left to avoid Fisichella. Bouncing off the rev-limiter at 200mph (7th gear was too short on Kimi’s car) Kimi turned into turn 1 taking 1st place on the final lap. I went mental! I was overjoyed with emotion, shouting at 6am in the morning. But it still wasn’t finished, I thought of Nurburgring earlier in the year when Kimi’s suspension broke on the final lap. It’s never over till its over.

But Kimi took the win, followed by Fisichella, Alonso, Webber and Button. Amazingly, Kimi had won from 17th on the grid. That fact helped numb the damage caused by Montoya’s retirement as Renault would go on to take the Constructors. Peter Windsor described Raikkonen’s move on Fisichella as “a sharp Finnish knife cutting through a tender piece of Italian Salami”. That move reminded me of what got me into F1, Mika Hakkinen’s great overtake at Spa 2000. Ron Dennis described the win as the greatest of Kimi’s career. Ron was clearly trying to show that the relationship between him and Kimi was good but what people didn’t know was that Kimi was fed up with McLaren. He had quietly signed a contract with Ferrari 3 months earlier for the 2007 season, and McLaren didn’t even know.

Reputations are fragile things that are not easily repaired. Plenty has been written about Michael Schumacher’s subdued return to Formula 1 and the damage it may do to his reputation but then there are more than a few people who already thought that his was a tainted legacy – what Jacques Villeneuve referred to as his “lack of class”. From his disqualification and subsequent ban at Silverstone in 1994 for failing to take a stop-go penalty right through to 2006 and the events at La Rascasse, Schumacher had left a trail of penalties in his wake, prompting Fernando Alonso to describe him as “the most unsporting driver with the largest number of sanctions in the history of formula one.”

Four year’s on from that quote and Alonso finds himself stepping ever closer to similar accusations. Inevitably in a world where people like to simplify things, Alonso’s two World Championships and the ending of Schumacher’s grip on the sport was seen by many fans as a victory of good over evil – an allegory that Alonso himself has not shied from exploiting in the past. However, that oversimplification was always a comment against Schumacher rather than praising Alonso.

“[Zinédine] Zidane retired with more glory than Schumacher. Michael is the most unsporting driver with the largest number of sanctions [against him] in the history of formula one. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been the best driver, and fighting against him has been an honour and a pleasure.”
Fernando Alonso

Since claiming his second World title, Alonso has found himself at the centre of McLaren’s spying saga, benefiting from Renault and Nelson Piquet Jr’s plotting at Singapore and now (and bearing the greatest similarity to Schumacher’s career yet) relying on team orders to pass his team mate. It’s turned many Formula 1 fans against him even if it is debatable as to what extent he was involved in each. In the words of Sidepodcast, “I think today Alonso became the man he always hated. Michael Schumacher.”

Then there is Alonso’s ‘the World is against me’ attitude that reared its head in Valencia as he accused the stewards of manipulating the result. “Unfortunately everything goes against us and it seems they are allowing everything,” complained the Spaniard ignoring the fact that his own race was damaged regardless of what Hamilton was doing up ahead. It’s not the first time this attitude has come out, his time at McLaren is defined by it and it goes back to the poor decision at the 2006 Italian Grand Prix for “impeding” Felipe Massa in qualifying (ah, the irony of that relationship coming full circle.) Yes it was an awful decision but perhaps Alonso was the wrong man to start claiming a conspiracy.

Yet, should we really be surprised? You don’t get to the top without an edge of ruthlessness, something that Felipe Massa appears to have lost since his accident a year ago. Ayrton Senna had it, Michael Schumacher still has it even if it has only shown itself as an opportunistic move at Monaco, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel has it and there is little doubt that Fernando Alonso is also in that group. Karun Chandhok may be a thoroughly nice bloke but is it any coincidence that “you could just about turn the current F1 drivers championship table on it’s head and that would give you the ‘2010 Good Bloke Championship’ standings”?

Back in May, Hamilton said, “I want to be remembered as a fair driver as a clean driver and one that always drove with my heart and battled through thick and thin to score the points and the championships I will hopefully earn by then.” Indeed, from his own low-point of Liegate and last year’s Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton has improved his reputation immeasurably, winning over new fans in the process even if his actions that weekend remain unforgivable to some. A similar renaissance has occurred at McLaren under the guidance of Saint Martin of Whitmarsh (as Stuart Codling loves to call him) – from the double blow of Spygate and Liegate, McLaren currently appear to be the peacekeepers of the paddock (well, when they’re not busy trying to wind up Red Bull.) Will that last? Who knows, undoubtedly they’re all still scheming behind the scenes and so remains a fragile truce.

It’s Alonso’s birthday today and if I could grant him a wish it would be that he realises the damage he is doing to his reputation. Alonso should be remembered for the great victories that he earned himself, not ones granted to him by his team mates. He should be remembered for fantastic driving and breathtaking passes, not the poorly thought out responses to adversity. His die-hard fans will defend him through thick and thin, yet perhaps it is how everyone else remembers him that matters more.

Image © Bridgestone Corporation 2010

Pictures from the 2010 British Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit. It was a race of mixed fortunes for Red Bull. As Mark Webber won from second, despite having an older front wing, his team mate Vettel had a disastrous start, losing the lead and suffering a puncture on the first lap. Lewis Hamilton put in another strong performance to finish second ahead of Mercedes’ of Nico Rosberg to retain the championship lead. Once again Ferrari were left angry when Alonso’s drive through penalty was compounded by the safety car for the second successive race…
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Images © Vodafone McLaren Mercedes | Mercedes GP Petronas | Getty Images/Red Bull | LAT/AT&T Williams F1 | LAT/Renault F1 | Force India F1 | Getty Images/Toro Rosso | Lotus Racing | Hispania Racing | Sauber Motorsport | Virgin Racing | Bridgestone Corporation 2011

Yes you guessed it. Red Bull has again locked out the front row with Sebastian Vettel on pole at Silverstone. In similar dominance of last year Vettel took pole by over a tenth of a second on Mark Webber. Possibly the biggest story in qualifying was Jenson Button starting in 14th after a poor qualifying session at the updated Silverstone circuit.

Q1
Kovalainen was the fastest driver of the new teams with Glock and Trulli close behind. Alguersuari failed to make it passed the first session, his Toro Rosso not looking anywhere near as strong as their sister team, Red Bull Racing. Yamamoto was impressive to only be 0.4 seconds behind Chandhok despite this being his first time in the car in a qualifying session and was comfortably within the 107% of Q1 time that will be used next season.

“You don’t get to drive these sorts of cars on these types of tracks too often, so hopefully I enjoy the day. Starting from pole on the clean side is the key for the race. I think we do have a quick car in qualifying but also in race conditions, so we should be able to have a good race but you never know.”

Sebastian Vettel

Q2
The big casualty of Q2 was Jenson Button; McLaren failed to live up to expectations so far this weekend, the big update package to the blown diffuser that had been tested in the first two FP sessions was removed on Friday night after the team decided against running it for the race. Jenson will start in 14th place and on the dirty side of the grid after complaining that his car was “un-driveable”. A good fight back during the race will be vital in maintaining his championship challenge. Renault hasn’t shown the pace of previous weekends at Silverstone, it seems the circuit doesn’t suit their car. Petrov failed to progress past Q2 whilst Kubica, fresh from the 2 year extension to his contract with Renault, just managed to get into Q3 by half a tenth. Vitantonio Luizzi suffered a five place grid drop for the race tomorrow after impeding Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg during the session, he will start the race tomorrow from 20th on the grid.

Q3
Going into the top ten shootout Red Bull had dominated qualifying and were expected to lock out the front row. The team’s closest challengers would be Ferrari after they took a step forward with the Mark II version of their exhaust blown diffuser. But Ferrari failed to challenge Red Bull as Vettel and Webber locked out the front row with Vettel leading the way. There was more controversy after the race when it was revealed that Vettel had been given the only other updated front wing after his incident in FP3. Mark Webber’s muted comment about the team being pleased with the result caused Christian Horner to dispute suggestions that the team had favoured Vettel by giving him the latest wing. However, it could be argued that Vettel’s wing issue from FP3 could return during the race and to have given it to Webber would have disadvantaged him. In the end, Vettel’s first flying lap was good enough for pole as Mark Webber just couldn’t find the speed on either of his flying laps. In a surprising display of dominance, Vettel is some eight tenths ahead of third placed Fernando Alonso with Lewis Hamilton a further tenth adrift.

Tomorrow Red Bull will expect to dominate and they really do look strong. Hamilton will look to use the solid McLaren race pace to challenge the Red Bulls and attempt to at least split them. Alonso will look to challenge with his good race craft and will hope for no safety cars! The strong headwinds that have caused issues for the drivers could make for an interesting race, and hopefully it won’t be a snore-fest of Red Bull dominance.



Image © Getty Images/Red Bull

Canada was back on the calendar and back with a bang as the packed stands of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve were treated to a thrilling race with five drivers all in a position to win for much of the race. At the conclusion, though, it was Lewis Hamilton and McLaren who made it two victories in succession, followed home by team mate Jenson Button.

Lewis Hamilton
Pole position on Saturday followed by race victory, there’s no doubt that Hamilton loves Montreal although maybe its pitlane doesn’t love him – this time around it saw him running wheel-to-wheel with Fernando Alonso before Hamilton gave way. A far from straight forward race, the team called the right tyre strategy coupled with Hamilton’s opportunistic pass of Alonso. He started from pole, at one point he looked like he might have to settle for fourth but in the end an impeccable drive delivered the result it deserved. Who says he can’t preserve his tyres?

“…it was difficult to know how much to save your tyres and how much to push, how much longer you had to go and how fast the guy behind you was and whether they were pushing or saving fuel or whatever. It was very, very challenging.”
Lewis Hamilton

Jenson Button
A rather subdued weekend saw Button finish a remarkable second – not many would have predicted that when he was struggling to even make the final qualifying shoot-out. He quickly conceded a position to the charging Mark Webber who had dropped down the grid with a gearbox change penalty. From that point it looked liked like fifth was the best he could hope for with Robert Kubica a threat. Then fourth looked on the cards as Sebastian Vettel dropped back after their second pitstops. Then third was up for grabs as Mark Webber struggled with his tyres. In the end he grabbed second all by himself as Alonso fell victim to a McLaren while in traffic for a second time. Sometimes, a little patience pays off.

Fernando Alonso
With team mate Felipe Massa seemingly going absent for the weekend Ferrari’s hopes were pinned on Alonso – he duly delivered a podium finish but must have been left thinking it could have been much better. On the same tyre strategy he got the jump on Lewis Hamilton at the first round of pitstops only to hand the position back while dealing with backmarkers. However, the pair continued to gain on the two Red Bull drivers who were going deeper into the race on the hard tyres. Then Alonso had the chance to go ahead of Hamilton once again at the second round of stops only to lose time in traffic and rejoin well behind Hamilton. To cap off Alonso’s frustration, more traffic saw him lose his second place to Button. Good day, except for those pesky backmarkers.

Red Bull
If McLaren gambled on an early safety car, Red Bull gambled on there not being one. Despite guessing right, they still ended up on the wrong tyre strategy as even the prime tyres proved susceptible to excessive wear in the early stages of the race. In Sebastian Vettel’s case, the lack of a safety car left him short of fuel and unable to challenge the front runners as he nursed the car home, coming to a stop shortly after the finish. Red Bull split the strategy after the first round of stops with Vettel switching to the option compound and Mark Webber aiming to take them late in the race. Webber’s race disintegrated along with his second set of tyres as he fell back into the clutches of Hamilton before finally changing to his final set of tyres before Alonso got past. Nothing wrong from either driver this weekend it was all down to a few small team decisions. Wrong tyre strategy, insufficient fuel and perhaps too slow to respond to the pace of others.

Michael Schumacher
A disappointing weekend for Schumacher, while his team looked confident in qualifying, finishing the race in an almost unnoticed sixth behind the leading pack, Schumacher had a weekend to forget. Knocked out in Q2 of qualifying he made up places at the start to ride up in eighth, reaching a high of third as the different tyre strategies played out, before he gradually fell further and further back. To cap it all, he lost two points paying positions on the final lap as the Force India pair finally carved their way past him, leaving Schumacher 11th and out of the points. The only bright spot for the seven times World Champion was that the stewards decided to overlook a series of aggressive moves. Force India 2, Schumacher 0.

Everyone Else
I give up detailing everyone else’s race, there seemed to be something happening somewhere all the time. Robert Kubica’s swipe across Adrian Sutil in order to enter the pits earned him a reprimand, Tonio Liuzzi drove a great recovery drive after tangling with Felipe Massa resulting in a hard-earned 9th place finish, Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus finished ahead of Vitaly Petrov’s Renault which seemed to spend most of the afternoon in the pitlane and Sebastian Buemi placed his Toro Rosso in an impressive 8th. A fantastic race, in a fantastic season – Valencia will have a lot to live up to.

Image © Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 2010

It may have been Ferrari’s 800th Grand Prix start, but for qualifying at least, the Scuderia’s dream of honours in Istanbul was not be fulfilled as Mark Webber secured this third consecutive pole for the Red Bull team, their seventh of the season. But it didn’t all go Red Bull’s way; Sebastian Vettel, perhaps rattled by his teammate’s pace could only manage third on the grid, a full half a second off the pace and now finds himself sandwiched between the two McLaren’s of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

It was always likely that Istanbul was to be a circuit that would favour McLaren; indeed their F-duct powered straight line speed shows a 6 km/h speed advantage over the Renault powered Red Bull though the speed trap, something that will make the race tomorrow more interesting for sure.

“This morning also we were not having the easiest P3 to be honest but getting ready for qualy, things started to get a bit better. I was a little bit on the back foot going into it to be honest but I knew I could dig deep, keep
going and get something out of it. In the end it turned out okay. To be honest I am more comfortable with tomorrow than I am on out-and-out pace. But at least I am starting in the right place.”
- Mark Webber

So what of the others; Michael Schumacher out-qualified Nico Rosberg for only the second time this season, and that was after a spin on the infamous turn eight, the Mercedes pair line up together on the third row if the grid. Robert Kubica put in another strong performance to power his car to seventh, continuing his 100% record in Q3 whilst Vitaly Petrov made his first appearance in Q3 to finish ninth just behind Felipe Massa. The final place in the top ten shoot out was taken by Kamui Kobayashi for BMW but he was well down, almost 2 seconds behind Webber and seven tenths slower than his Q2 time.

After storming through the field from the back of the grid at Monaco, Fernando Alonso faces a repeat act this weekend after failing to make Q3, he starts tomorrow in 12th place alongside Adrian Sutil. The sister Force India of Tonio Luizzi, complete with its own version of the F-duct didn’t even manage to make Q2 thereby raising doubts that the driver will be replaced before the season is out by the much touted Paul di Resta.

At the back of the grid, Lotus was once more the fastest of the new entrants. HRT received a welcome boost as Bruno Senna secured 22nd place having beaten a Virgin car in qualifying for the first time this season.



Image © Getty Images/Red Bull