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Your Australian correspondent (that is, moi) has just returned after a long and exhausting trip – after all it’s not easy to get to Melbourne on a student’s budget, so you will have to forgive me.
Unfortunately my pedal boat was attacked by Indonesian pirates along the way and I had to save myself to the best of my ability, thus arriving in Melbourne a day late and missing qualy. A pity too, because I’ve been told it was interesting and the grid looked messed up at first glance on Sunday. I mean, obviously Kimi should have been on pole, right? And what do you mean HRT failed to qualify? Their donkeys were obviously the fastest around that track! Investigation is in order…
So, on to the main event, one of the few races guaranteed to be exciting no matter how much the teams/Bernie/Global warming might want to prevent it.
Sunday was a sunny and friendly day, contrasting with testing (or so I’m told). Everyone was happy, excited and looking forward to the race (except for Damon Hill). Vvvrooooommmmmmmmm… cars rev the engines and start moving along the track – two minutes and we’re getting started!
Everyone finds their place, suddenly they grow still aaaaaand it’s GO! Button launches a carefully planned shot down the side of Hamilton and gets the best place into the corner – that’s a guy who just made his race. McLarens at the front and out of the mess now the interest shifts to the rest of the grid who didn’t have such a clean shot at the race line.
Nico Rosberg had a great start, passing cars like an arrow until he landed in 4th, very well executed and quite aggressive. Meanwhile, further back Alonso seemed to just be minding his own business, not a movement to show aggressiveness or desire to overtake the 11 cars in front of him – but he caught the racing line full on it looked like he had a railway made for him. While everyone around him went wide at that first corner, there he was - passing 1, 2, 3…
Of course there were some dismal starts as well, but obviously those are not half as interesting. As expected from Albert Park, not half a mile down the road there was already a car facing the wrong way and more than a few visiting the gravel for a short while. Webber got sandwiched between two excited youngsters (I bet he didn’t like that) but finally they regrouped and the full effect of the start could be felt. But wait… not before Maldonado makes a move on Grosjean and leaves the Qualy hopeful out of the race with a broken suspension. There, that’s it, now we can count:
McLarens breezing along, Mercedes straight after them with Vettel breathing down their necks, then Alonso (hey, when did you get here, amigo?) and then a flurry of Williams, Sauber, a FI and a Lotus here and there.
Surprisingly fast, Vettel sorted out his Rosberg problem and went right after Schumacher in the other Mercedes. Then he set himself up by going wide and by the time he caught up to Schumi again and resumed attacking him the Mercedes had a gearbox problem. Ouch, goodbye Schumi. And now Vettel has a clean track to chase the McLarens so… further back we go.
Back to Rosberg and Alonso having fun, to Maldonado getting back what he lost when he collided with Grosjean, to Raikkonen and Kobayashi looking good for entertainment, and – oh wait – back to Massa struggling to drive his car properly (yes, even by Massa standards). It seems the rubber-eating monster that lives somewhere around his suspension had taken a bite of his rear tyres and forced him to pit alarmingly early.
The Ferraris were fast to pit, but many more did the same not long after. The notable exceptions were Kimi who lasted a bit longer but didn’t seem to profit from it, and Perez who just had fun playing “can you overtake the slow car” with the front-runners. Thanks to their help the field livened up a bit: Vettel chasing Hamilton and Alonso, Rosberg and Webber battling with Maldonado closing in on them.
Then, as soon as second pitstops were required, kammerad Vitaly parked his car onto the grass on the main straight in what will undoubtedly be known as the Vettel-Petrov-Gate. The Safety Car made its appearance and this allowed Vettel to make his pitstop at the right moment before the cars bunched up and, profiting from the delay where Petrov had stopped, to reappear right in between the two McLarens he had been trying to catch the whole race. Webber did some kind of a magic trick that allowed him to jump the cars he hadn’t overtaken properly on the track. All in all the RBR benefitted.
After the race restart Button sped away, Vettel couldn’t catch him yet again and Lewis stuck to his third place sandwiched between the Red Bulls. Quite obviously, Webber couldn’t overtake him. Kobayashi pulled a lightning-fast pass on Raikkonen that couldn’t get the position back. The Rosberg/Alonso/Maldonado group looked fun but did little. No desperate tries to overtake each other or anything.
But not to worry, Massa will come to save the day. In a tangle with Bruno Senna for what seemed to be last place (because that’s where a Ferrari belongs, surely?) sparks flew, tyres were punctured and decreed it was that the end for his race this was to be. At least the sparks looked impressive. But the manoeuvre (seriously, that’s how you spell maneuver? By George…) in itself was even below Massa’s usual style (and you can tell me it was Senna’s fault for I do not know and care very little).
Anyway, let’s fast forward to the last lap because the interesting stuff seemed to concentrate there. Rosberg’s car said goodbye slowly but surely. Maldonado, after a great race, managed to crash his car because of a little misjudgement (ouch). Perez must have really killed his one-stop strategy tyres because suddenly everyone got past him, and the Toro Rossos (close behind) decided this was the perfect moment to battle it out team-style and what better than to bring it right to the finish line? Ricciardo won that battle and got a point or two.
All in all, a fun race, lots of action, people crashing… everything we expect of Melbourne (oh, and Webber not being on the podium too). The hot-blooded Latin guys were fun to watch, as was Kobayashi. A pity for Maldonado, but everything can happen in Melbourne, so now he knows that.
And now for something completely random, because you can’t really expect a technical/serious (or even accurate) review of me and I have to make up for that.
- Hamilton’s girlfriend has suddenly become modest and less flashy. Hidden motives? And not even jumping around, that’s weird.
- Jenson Button was wearing his grandma’s sunglasses as a good luck charm and it seems it worked wonders for him.
- Tons of brats (Pic with that silly haircut, Ricciardo looks straight out of high school, and I didn’t even see the rest of them XD).
- Maldonado’s girlfriend is cute (so far so good) but he looks like a potato… this potato-human pair puzzles my childish brain.
- Button is funny – which is nice.
- Kimi is Kimi – which for me is nice. I think if I ever go to a race I will have to bring a blue flag for him to sign.
- By the way, I didn’t take digs at Webber because I hate him. No, really, I don’t.
- Or Massa.
- I just never seem to see them on track so I have to make up what they did or didn’t do.
- Handy was right about the Williams (at least so far he looks spot on).
- Lists are nice but I forgot half of what this one had to contain.
- Oh, wait, wait, McLaren is better than Red Bull!! I was forgetting that. Half the forum was right then. And bonus – it looks better too
- By the way, I’m rooting for Button until Kimi starts getting on the podium. There
Anyway, I have to go now, I have a shark bite which needs some tending to. That, and I want to read the tons of posts I missed this weekend
