Brazil

Well I just have this feeling that wily old Alonso may just put enough pressure on our rapid German to cause a wibble, and so as it will make little difference to my performance this year, I will go:

Pole Vettel
Win Alonso
FL Raikenen

Looks like rain as well and as I had a go on the track, (in my F1 game of course), I can vouch for going from 1st to 24th in just 2 laps, so anything can happen!!

Austin

Bit of an unknown... but I'm going to get this one in early...

Pole: Hamilton

Win: Vettel

FL:Vettel

abu dhabi

Pole button
win vettel
fl webber

Abi Dabi

Well looking at the practise sessions, it looks like Vettel is on the pace again, if Lewis is a bit closer.  Their pace may not make up for Adrian Newey and his secret aeros, (not the chocolate).  So with boring predictability I will go for:

Pole - Vettel
Win - Vettel
FL - Raikkonen

By the way, I have had a practise round Yas Marina and it is boring and featureless except for the hotel which kept changing colours, (yes even in the game), mind you watching the colour change caused me to crash!  But no matter, I was set to 'indestructable' so just bounced off the wall and carried on.

Ring ding ding ding....

I'll go for:

Pole: Vettel (or Wettel as the Indians would say)
Win: Vettel
F/Lap: Vettel - hey, why not...

Korea

Korea; not had a chance to practise the circuit yet, however, with my ever reliable Sword of Damocles at the ready, I feel should be the turn of Vettel, he had it too easy in Japan.  So

Pole Vettel
Win Vettel
FL Vettel

Suzuka 2012

I'll go for:

Pole: Vettel
Win: Vettel
F\Lap: Alonso

Night time race- Singapore

George's predictions

Pole: Button
Win: Hamilton
FL: Alonso

Predictions for Monza

Alex's predictions:

Pole: Button
Win: Button
FL: Alonso

Belgian Grand Prix

As my parents are away, my Dad's predictions are...

Pole: Vettel
Win: Hamilton
F/L: Raikkenon

.. and mine are:

Pole: Alonso
Win: Vettel
F/L: Hamilton

The next grand prix...

Hmm, it would seem like going for... Pole: Alonso Win: Alonso Fl: vettel ... Would be a viable choice. Time will tell.

Hungaroring

Off to Glasgow this weekend, so no chance to check out the first 2 practice sessions, so early prediction from me.

Now let me see, who can I put the fickle finger of fate on this week? 

Well I chose Vettel when he had a blown alternator when in the lead.
He was also heading for decent points when he passed Button on the blind side only to get punished and go from 2nd to 5th
In between it was Hamilton but he blew it cos it was wet........

Now they have discovered Red Bull's Turbo button maybe its time for Ferrari to get my dreaded vote.  So:

Pole: Alonso
Win: Alonso
FL: Raikkanen

This weeks grand prix...

Attempting to use the blog from my phone, I shall select the following for this weeknd's race. Not that I can remember where it is, but it's th 20th of July... Pole: vettel Winner: vettel FL: rosberg

Alex's Predictions for Hockenheim:


Pole: Button
Win: Webber
F/L: Raikkonen

Euro is GO!

Well that was a bit of a shock wasn't it? I must admit even if I had predicted the correct race winner I would never have predicted a race as exciting as that. Alonso wins from 11th on the grid, Vettel suddenly looks fast but shockingly the Renault has developed unreliability that causes Vettel and Grosjean to fail to finish. The Mclarens are nowhere and still terrible at pit stops, whilst Schumacher seems as sloppy as ever whilst Rosberg has reverted to trundling round tracks impressing himself with 6th place finishes.
So finally Valencia delivers an entertaining race. Pirelli must surely take all the credit for this despite all media outlets praising Valencia even though nothing has changed at the circuit it is still the same go-kart track it has always been. The only major difference is the tyres which finally seem to be causing mayhem in the field as drivers are on different compounds, different ages of tyre and different remaining amounts of rubber meaning a huge range of top speeds or speeds achievable round corners etc. We got to see huge trains of cars, dozens of overtakes and a number of exciting and dramatic incidents.
The Renaults seem to have dispelled my fear they would repeat last years strategy of giving up mid season to focus on next years car. The car looks fast, and fully capable of achieving a race win. Both drivers are competing well but to me Grojean looks like a man inches from getting his first win which will open the gates to further wins and competing for titles. Raikonnen? I'm not so sure. He seems capable of a win given the right circumstances but I just don't feel he will ever be focused enough again to really compete for regular victories despite me being glad he's back with his skillful, exciting driving and his complete disdain for all the corporate glad handing and p.c., sanatised, p.r., b.s., that all other sportsmen churn out before and after events.
The Button mystery baffles me to such a degree that combined with my natural dislike for the bloke who only won a title when his car was vastly better than anyone else's and once the competition improved their cars he didn't win another race. The guy that can be heard on every radio transmission wining "too much overstear', oh no hang on "too much understear". Its never his fault, there is always something wrong with the car. Yet the Ferrari is widely acknowledge to be the worst of the front running cars and Alonso wins when he feels like it, it seems, and he appears to be leading the championship. So I dismiss Button and his moaning I care not. I did have cause to consider him the other day though as I wondered whether is in fact his pace the real pace of the Mclaren and Lewis is driving the wheels off of his car. In a similar vein is Massa's pace the real pace of the Ferrari and in fact Alonso is doing an even better job than he's being praised for. I guess the truth is somewhere in the middle but frankly either way my sympathy and patience with Button and Massa has now been completely exhausted.
Webber seems to have a mental bloke or the strangest luck in the world, as he started 19th but yet again finished 4th. He could of course heave been on the podium but for what seemed like a sympathy vote for Schumacher from the stewards who dismissed appeals against the Mercedes team for Michaels seeming use of his DRS in a yellow flag zone.
So to the retirements. Well I was cheated. Only the 3rd time this season I've backed Vettel to win and for the 3rd time he's let me down. I can't believe with only 20 laps to go the bullet proof Renault would collapse with a failed alternator. Stranger still Grosjean retired a handful of laps later also with a failed alternator in a Renault engine. Very strange indeed. So with so many of us predicting Sebastian it was a very low scoring week. Martin was unlucky as he threw in a late all three prediction of Vettel and with 20 laps to go looked to be top scorer of the weekend. Moments later Martin's left with only 10 points. No need to worry though as four others finished with this total. I was saved by predicting Rosberg for fastest lap also predicted by Alex and George which is only the second race that anyone has predicted this category.
Alan WA was scuppered by Maldonado's terrible driving and incident causing again. Hamilton was set of 3rd which would have been slightly disappointing but not bad with Vettel and Button not scoring and finishing in front of Webber. Sadly Maldonado decided to again display his dreadful decision making when his blood is up. His post race interview confirmed his delusions too as he claimed Lewis had forced him off the track and caused the accident when to my mind it's fairly clear Lewis held his line, and despite Maldonado's statement "there was nothing I could do" he chose not to use his brake pedal and ploughed into the side of Hamilton's car. Thus Alan WA was denied 15 points so rather than 2nd he sits 4th in our league. However Lewis shouldn't have been in that position. He should have been leading the race but once again Mclaren balls it up and he lost 3 places in a pit stop. Frankly if he left at the end of the season and even if he went to Ferrari I couldn't hold it against him as the continuous failings of Mclaren under the witless leadership of Whitmarsh is ruining his career. He should have at least two championship titles by now rather than the single one Mclaren have been able to help him achieve. The Top scorer this week was a tie between George and Alex by predicting a 4th place, the pole and the fastest lap setter. Jack scored 3rd by somehow nailing the unlikely winner of Alonso and I was saved by predicting Rosberg's fastest lap and Vettel's pole. everybody else was punished by the retirements and finished tied on 10 points the bottom score this week.
So 12 races to go 35 points cover 1st  to 8th with Martin a little adrift in 9th but still with so many races and so many points still available there is plenty of time for things to change.
Currently after this weeks points haul George sits atop our league table having been 12 points behind Simon last week this week she is 10 points ahead now with an amazing turnaround. So congratulations to George and now off to Blighty and the GP of Silverstone.

The League Table after 8 races

Week 8
	Predictor	Points
1	George	161
2	Simon	151
3	Jack	141
4	Alan WA	137
5	James	136
6	Alex	134
7	Becx	131
8	Alan D	126
9	Martin	99

 
Predictions for Great Britain by 07/07/12 please. Best of luck.

Alex's Predictions for Valencia

Pole: Vettel
Win: Webber
FL: Rosberg

CANA-we do it?
Yes we can-ADA
CANA-done!

Oh yes. At last I predict Hamilton to win, and he does. Get in!
Sadly virtually all of us predicted this outcome at a traditional Mclaren stronghold.
Becx and Martin are this weekends top scorers with 35 points for predicting Hamilton would win the race but Vettel would snatch pole position. Jack was the only person to predict Vettel would set the fastest lap but unfortunately he was rather slapped in the face by Ferrari's race strategy and thus only scored 29 due to picking up 10 points with Alonso. Our lowest points scorer this weekend was Alan D who also predicted an Alonso win but didn't have Vettel's fastest lap to recover some points with.

So our league table is starting to take some shape after 7 races we are over a third into the season and top to bottom is now 52 points. Not an unassailable lead with only two correct race winner predictions required to close the gap but now is the time to make moves as we head into a period of 4 races in 6 weeks and the season really gets serious. We are firmly into the European part of the season, which sadly means wasting our time watching the Valencia Carpark GP and hearing the BBC once again say;
"Oh look at the masonry on those pit garages, they used to be fish markets you know?"
Yes I did know, you say that every bloody year! This of course further illustrates the dull nature of the racing at Valencia where the highlights are a terribly designed pit entry lane and the potential for Kovalainen to flip anyone trying to pass him into the air over the wall and into the harbor. Well that's how I remember it anyway.

Montreal then.
It was good wasn't it? Some great racing; another retirement for Schumacher (no I'm not laughing behind my hand), more hugely impressive action from Sauber (how do they do it?), and thanks to the strategies of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mclaren managing not to balls it up for one race at least.
Yes I must admit huge gratitude to Red Bull and Ferrari for trying something different and failing but not regretting it. Of course lots of people including supposed 'technical expert' Gary Anderson criticised both teams for blowing a possible win with these tactics, but I couldn't disagree more.
Watching as much sport as I do I can say with confidence that whilst professionalism is perhaps not killing our favourite competitions, events and spectacles but it's certainly making them less exciting. Football has suffered hugely due the introduction of so called professional standards as can be seen at World Cups where rather than the mysterious unknown teams from far flung countries turning up playing their own unique interpretation of football, now the World Cup is just 32 teams playing the same tactically educated, defensive, better not to lose than risk going for the win style football.
F1 has seen similar developments in terms of reliability, too many decisions referred to stewards, rather than simply being called 'racing', too much reliability, and teams making 'professional' decisions to score points rather than go for wins.
Yes you may appear more professional, you may win more titles(??), but when we are all old and gray and the world looks back on great moments in life, sport, F1 they aren't going to recall that hugely professional 6th place finish that allowed you to nick the title of that bloke who won 8 races that season, 3 of them with a broken wrist, 2 with only 3 wheels on the car, and one crossing the finish line backwards and on fire! My point being with Mclaren following their plan they changed tyres perhaps before they needed to but it stuck to strategy. Red Bull and Ferrari thought 'our tyres feel ok, maybe we can get to the end and keep Lewis behind us?' Thus they tried. It didn't work but it made those last 20 laps or so massively exciting as you wondered how long could Vettel and Alonso go and would Lewis catch them in time?
I think possibly my favourite moment of the race was when Lewis did catch Fernando the Ferrari man despite having no rubber left and sliding all over the track kept Hamilton behind him for a few corners with brilliant car control and competitive determination, but without being dangerous or going too far in defending a position it was inevitable he would lose.

So 7 races 7 winners. Could it be 8 for 8? In my opinion no, but you never know there is still the possibility with drivers like Raikkonen and perhaps even Grosjean or Schumacher if he can avoid crashing.
Unfortunately it's the European GP next which means Valencia despite Sebastian being champion. I know they haven't done it for donkeys but I still think if they're going to add a non national race into the season it should be a gift to the current title holder, but maybe that's just me. Any excuse not to keep going back to Valencia really.

The League Table after 7 races

Week 7
	Predictor	Points
1	Simon	141
2	George	129
3	Alan WA	127
4	Becx	121
5	Jack	117
6	Alan D	116
=	James	116
8	Alex	102
9	Martin	89

Predictions for Valencia by 23/06/12 please. Best of luck.

FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX DU CANADA 2012

All eyes are on Hamilton to be the umpteenth winner of 2012 despite his team's best efforts to balls it up for him. So:

Pole: Hamilton
Win: Hamilton
F/Lap: Rosberg

DC.

MONTE CARLO-ssal disappointment

That's right the puns keep a coming and thank god for that.
So after much excitement in the weeks leading up to Monaco the race was a bit of a damp squib for me. The BBC reported it as a thrilling race across all of its outlets based almost entirely on the fact that the top 4 were covered by less than 2 seconds. Yawn so they finished close together, there was no threat of an overtake occurring. The most exciting part of the weekend seemed to be Schumacher actually for-filling his own prophecy and taking pole and then due to his correctly awarded penalty started from 6th. This led to the now traditional Schumacher in an incident in at the first corner moment. After that I can't really recall much of note that occurred. It was still pleasurable to watch the beautiful scenery and cars but even with the difficulty in overtaking as repetitively mentioned through out the weekend there was less action than normal with very little barrier brushing, wheel to wheel bashing or overtakes.
So Webber won somehow predicted by George so a whopping 25 points earned there. Becx's traditional Button prediction led to zero points in the race and minus 2 in qualifying so an unhappy weekend for her as the weekend's lowest points scorer. Alex made good gains with a third placed Fernando Alonso and a 5th placed qualifying again form Mr Alonso.

In the overall league Simon becomes the first person to retain the league lead over two weekends and has managed to increase his lead from 1 point to 10.
Only 14 more races to go now so is Simon building an unassailable lead?
No. However we've seen this before and if no one steps up to challenge soon could this be title number 3? A third in a row, a record for the F1 GP Fantasy Prediction League.
Canada next and I predict a great race.

The League Table after 6 races

Week 6
	Predictor	Points
1	Simon	107
2	Alan D	97
3	George	95
4	Alan WA	93
5	Jack	88
6	Becx	86
7	James	82
8	Alex	70
9	Martin	54

 Predictions for Canada by 09/06/12 please. Best of luck.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/monaco-grand-prix-iconic-posters-846460

A few highlights of Monaco GPs past with pics and posters.

GRAND PRIX DE MONACO 2012

Georgie's Predictions 


FL; Hamilton
Pole; Vettel
Win; Webber

 Race Report 5: Viva Barcelona

As Freddy Mercury would say if he were alive, interested in F1 and prone to using his lyrics to comment upon GPs. So in many respects it’s Viva Barcelona as Freddy Mercury wouldn’t have said at all.
Anyway I enjoyed the race. After the ‘Boredom of Bahrain’ anything would have been an improvement in the entertainment stakes but to me Barcelona was a pretty good race.

The crucial moment of the weekend appeared to occur on Saturday when my old issue with Martin Whitmarsh resurfaced once more. Some how Mclaren have turned up this season with the best car but being Mclaren led by Whitmarsh they have failed to take advantage of this situation at all. Admittedly Button has won a race but Hamilton has yet to stand on the top step of the podium post race despite qualifying on pole 3 times out of five races and qualifying second on the other two occasions. Somehow incidents, bad luck and bad management have combined to prevent Hamilton take advantage of any of these situations. The Spanish GP failure though has to be most embarrassing and costly of the year so far and to me seems indicative of the cautious management style that has in my opinion ruined Hamiltons’ chances of victory over the last two years. Once again at the last race Hamilton suffered a penalty which effectively ended his hopes of winning the race due to two factors.  1 an error made by his team which at the end of the day Whitmarsh has to take responsibility for and 2 the decision to stop the car out on track as this would leave enough fuel to give a sample, but with the knowledge that stopping the car out on track would lead to a penalty for Lewis. This strikes me as another cautious decision by Whitmarsh that just made the situation worse. In my opinion they should have just got Lewis back to the garage as slowly as possible. Then they could have tried to find a sample for the scrutineers and if they succeeded great and if not then they get a penalty but by stopping out on track the penalty was inevitable.
The continued failure of Mclaren to win a race (Button’s win accepted) when there is not one other great car out on the grid when one looks coldly at the teams is a catastrophe. Williams, Sauber and Ferrari continue to be hugely impressive but they shouldn’t be winning races with their budgets, drivers or in the case of Ferrari, with what is clearly not a championship winning car.

If Mclaren fails to win the title I think it will be time for Whitmarsh to step down as boss.

So the race.

It was quite good wasn’t it? I was a little disappointed that Alonso didn’t manage to keep up the pace and chase down Maldonado. Obviously none of us predicted Pastor would take the victory and top step of the podium who would have? I must admit being a little disappointed he won rather than Bruno Senna which would have been a huge story. The Renaults looked briefly pacey and then faded but perhaps this year unlike last year they will continue to develop he car rather than pointlessly give up to work on next years car which in turn they will give up on a few races in to the season to develop next years car, and on and on… Anyway perhaps as I say they will continue to work on this car as it seems to have pace and they have two great drivers who could definitely win races this year.
Hamilton performed admirably to get from 24^th to 8^th. Sadly despite it benefiting my points Vettel did manage a surge past him late in the race. Webber was once again nowhere and Button the champion professional winger (a title he has won form Webber) spent the entire weekend bleating about understeer, oversteer any bloody steer that means he escapes blame for another weak performance. Congratulations are due to Maldonado. He drove well, qualified amazingly and didn’t crack under the pressure (this time). However a pole to flag win has never really impressed me so I must admit struggling to muster much enthusiasm for Pastors win. He also sounded a little keen talking about the championship in the post race interviews. On the other hand seeing Williams back where I think most of us have wanted to see them again after 8 years was a wonderful thing. Shame of course that someone lit the BBQ inside the garage but hopefully all is well, everyone is fit and healthy and it won’t effect their performance at the next race.

Of course one can’t produce a race report without mentioning the bizarre and hilarious Michael Schumacher vs Bruno Senna incident. Schumacher bizarrely claimed after he left the garage that if we watch the video like he just had we would see Senna move once, and then weave back leaving him no room and making a crash inevitable. Well I don’t know what computer enhanced footage he was shown but in the tape I saw multiple times from multiple angles showed that if Senna had moved to his right is was no more than half a foot, he then moved smoothly and un-dramatically back slightly to take the line through the corner as drivers are permitted to do. Schumacher claimed Senna had moved in the braking zone. Well firstly as I described above a driver is allowed one move to defend and then can take their line through a corner. Secondly if they were in the braking zone, why wasn’t Schumacher braking? He hammered into the back of Senna’s car almost at full pace, where was this breaking you were speaking of Michael? The fact that everyone has come out uniformly damning Schumcher for his part in the incident reassures me I can understand what I’m seeing occurring in a race (something I rarely doubt as I seem to spot things minutes before the commentators on a regular basis) and it pleases me that he wont get away with blaming other drivers for his terrible mistakes. The main thought I’m left with is, what was he doing? I can’t understand what Schumacher expected to happen coming into the corner that fast and closing on Senna as quickly as he did?

Tyres thought: Can’t they make a tyre you can drive flat out on for say 10 laps and then drops off a cliff, not a tyre that drops over that cliff edge after 3 flat out laps? It’s so dull not getting to see the top speed of the cars and listening to the pundits go on and on and on about the bloody tyres again.

Anyway enough of that, our league table

So there have been questions regarding penalties for predictors who pick a driver for pole who then receives a penalty and drops down the grid before the race. Well as clarified at the last race if this occurs you too will suffer the penalty to add that extra jeopardy to predictions and really mix up our point scoring. This week this rule really came home to roost as a few of us predicted Hamilton for pole and after Mclaren’s standard balls up we have felt the pain of Charlie Whiting’s surprisingly harsh punishment and with Jack, Alex and myself predicting him for pole perhaps we would have been better off not submitting any predictions after all as we each received an eye watering -14 for that element of prediction. So another low scoring weekend generally with Simon pulling a second place out of the bag with Alonso yet again finishing well in what is supposedly a dog of a car. Whilst Jack picked up a third with Raikkonen which alleviates the Hamilton punishment a little.
So top scorer this week Simon with 22 and bottom Alex with -8

After 5 races here is the league table. Simon has once again risen to the top in ominous form whilst the two low scoring and largely unpredictable weekends have bunched the table up a bit. So we go into race 6 wondering whether it will be 6 races, 6 winners?

The League Table after 5 races

Week 5
	Predictor	Points
1	Simon	89
2	Becx	88
3	Alan D	87
4	Jack	83
5	Alan WA	75
6	George	68
7	James	64
8	Alex	49
9	Martin	44

Predictions for Monaco by 12:10 26/05/12 please. Best of luck.

Sorry for repeat but so far I think I have only added my preditions as a comment on others.  So just to make sure its out there:
Pole:  Vettel
Win:  Hamilton
FL:  Alonso

Pole: Vettel
Win: Hamilton
FL: Button

Becx

Spanish GP.
I am not sure that this will reach the site but here goes:

Do we fear that Vettel has overcome whatever it was that stalled the Red Bull Steamroller in the first 3 races? Well I suspect that he may be able to get Pole but they might still be a little fragile over a race length.
So I will go for:
Pole - Vettel.
Win - Hamilton.
FL - Vettel.

AlanWA.

Oh this year i'm off to sunny Spain, Y Viva Espana...

Sorry about the blogger reminder email. I know I've posted before but I couldn't remember how to do it and the site was driving me berserk....

So anyway, it's wide open so I'll go for:

Pole: Vettel
Win: Alonso
F/Lap: Hamilton

Salud!

And here's a piccie of the damage for those who haven't seen it..... boo hoo.

GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA SANTANDER 2012

George's Predication 

Pole Rosburg

Win Hamilton

FL Webber

Race Report 4: Has there been a Sakhir/Sucky-er race than the Bahrain GP?

Ok so that pun probably doesn't work but the point is I can't really recall anything of interest from the most controversial GP of the last few years.

The race went ahead which caused a little surprise I must admit. With the now standard modern day news broadcasting less interested in actually bringing you fact laden news reports as much as splashing a dramatic doom seemed, end of days style tabloid gossip piece I was convinced we would be broadcast pictures of pit garages in rubble piles, burning pyres all over the track, cars turned over and no race taking place at all. However the race went ahead with almost no incident. I don't say this to argue in favor of the race taking place in future as it seems fairly unethical to take an international sporting event to a country in political unrest and claim you're not supporting the regime that has paid you to come over and put on a show. My point here is simply that it turned out to be just another storm of media hyperbole.

As I said above I can recall no action from the race whatsoever and I'm not going to put myself through it again so let's for once focus on the league and it's participants for once.

Firstly Alex scored nought, nul point, nada, zero, silch, bugger all. As I received no predictions. If this is erroneous please inform and correct me and I will adjust the scoreboard asap.

A very low scoring week this one as like fools we were all suckered in by Red Bulls slow start to the year and all of us predicted a Mclaren win only for Vettel to sneakily take the chequered flag and the glory of the top step of the podium. Alan WA, George, myself, Martin and Jack did score well for Hamilton's second on the grid whilst again no one picked out the fastest lap setter. I wonder whether anyone will get one of these before the season is over as, as a few people have pointed out, it really is a random, throw a dart at a dartboard type of guess these days. Perhaps my idea from last year to include a prediction of the first retirement would be worth introducing now. We could all score 10 points every week just by writing down Schumacher's name each race. Miaow!

So a very low scoring week. Jack top scored by some distance with 21 and Alex bottom with 0. This saw Jack return to the top of the table after initially topping the league in week 1. Still at the foot of the table is Martin but so many races still to run and many months before the business end of the season comes into sight.

Currently we seem to have a top 3 of Jack, Becx & Alan D. A little gap and then James, Alan WA & Simon. Finally there is a third group of 3 not to far back chasing us all down made up of George, Alex & Martin.

So that's enough for one of the duller races in recent times.

The League Table after 4 races

Week 4
	Predictor	Points
1	Jack	82
2	Becx	80
3	Alan D	79
4	James	70
5	Alan WA	67
=	Simon	67
7	George	59
8	Alex	57
9	Martin	40

Predictions for Spain to be delivered by 12/05/12

Bahrain

Hope this ends up in the right place.

Lets go for

Pole Rosburg
Win Hamilton
FL Webber

george's predictions for barblarr

Pole - Hamilton.

Win - Button.

FL - Rosberg.

yes i did copy AlanWA,, and what ya gonna say about that? nothing.. oh. 

Bahrain

Three races and three different winners! Not like the "good old days" when the pole and winner were usually totally predictable.
Any way my predictions are:
Pole - Hamilton.
Win - Button.
FL - Rosberg
AlanWA.

Bahrain Grand Prix...

...assuming it goes ahead. 

Pole: Hamilton

Winner: Massa

F/L: Button

That should be random enough...

Race Report 3: A Shang-Hi to you all!

OK sorry that’s the end of the terrible puns (probably). The King is dead. Long live the King. So AlanD aka MansellMan has lost his crown and Becx has taken over the throne as leader of our Predictin’ league.

Still very, very early days of course so not much to be read into the league yet but it’s all still pretty tight and no one has forged an unassailable lead, so all looks set for an exciting season.

Thoughts on the China GP;

It struck me that perhaps Mercedes looked after their tyres better in China than previous circuits not only because it was cooler in Shagnhai than it had been in Malaysia and Australia but also because the circuit is not a heavily corner based circuit instead it’s a straights dominated track. In fact watching the cars trundle down the longest straight in F1 had me thinking why didn’t the designers put a curve in, or a gradient, an s-bend or anything? There is no excitement at all in watching the cars just parade down what seems not just the longest straight but the straightest, flattest straight too. Plus they got the DRS activation point wrong. Yawn!

Was the finish the most un-dramatic ever? Rosberg rolled across the line at about 2miles per hour, 20 seconds clear of everyone else. The last 10 laps of the race were great so that excitement was rather punctured by Nico’s pedestrian roll over the line.

Typical. I thought that Mercedes might get some podiums if not a win this season as I stated in previous blogs but it’s flippin typical that they get pole and a win the week after I decided Rosberg would never win a race. After backing him for 3 seasons telling Dad that I thought he was a good driver and would prove it some day I finally deserted him after his weak and wet performances in the first two races of the season. Typical he should pull out a potential 35 points if predicted in this week’s league. Fortunately for me I predicted Schumacher for pole and with Hamilton’s penalty I score good.

Jenson Button seems to be the perfect driver for Mclaren as he is pragmatic. He holds up other drivers by not making overtaking maneuvers and not being aggressive enough and waiting for something to happen. I felt he ruined the race by not making any attempt to catch and pass Rosberg. After Schumacher retired he let Nico pull out a lead whilst holding up Hamilton, Raikkonen et al behind him as he wouldn’t risk his tyres by trying to do anything preferring to just sit back and wait for everything to fall into his lap.

It wasn’t a great race overall. I don’t think the track really encourages it. However lap 48 was superb. Raikkonen dropped from 2^nd to 14^th and Vettel, Webber, Button, Hamilton, the Williams drivers and the Sauber duo all involved in passing, re-passing and general overtaking excitement.

My driver of the season so far has to be Pirez. His ability to save his tyres, and still keep good speed in the car is hugely impressive. However he made a ridiculous defensive move on his team mate down one of the straights where he nearly ran Kobayashi off the track. I’ve also noted he seems to lock up his tyres quit a lot. Although this doesn’t seem to affect his tyres or pace. A lot like Hamilton did in his first season. Sadly Lewis now seems to be becoming more pragmatic and less entertaining.

In regard to tyres Raikkonen should surely have been pitted by his team. Losing 12 places in one lap is ridiculous.

Another piece of odd/amateurish driving from Grojean as he tried to hold off Maldonado. He defended well but then continued to defend even though Maldonado was no longer behind him as he himself was fending off an attack from Pirez. Grojean seems a decent speedster but I’m not sure he’ll cut it as a top F1 driver.

I was wondering if new main commentator Ben Edwards is from Yorkshire? I only ask because he drops ‘the’ from ‘the pit lane’ so we get ‘Button enters pit lane’ and read or said with a Yorkshire accent this becomes quit amusing.

Watching the Raikkonen pit stop release when he proceeded to drive down the pit lane alongside Hamilton not only made me wonder how that wasn’t considered an unsafe release but if it is a safe release why did Mclaren ruin Lewis’ race in Malaysia by holding him back for multiple seconds to allow Massa to pass by. According to Irvine Raikkonen’s wasn’t an unsafe release as there was no one in the pit lane. Something that I can’t imagine Renault was really aware of or considered before releasing Raikkonen into Hamilton’s path.

Coulthard Words of Wisdom – He continues to point out the painfully obvious as if offering great insight (I have a feelong this will become a regular feature)

Coulthard states he can’t recall Vettel winning in a fashion as dominant as Rosberg at the weekend. Odd he must have spent the last two years with his eyes closed. Vettel regularly shot off from the pole position to drive machine like to a win without giving any other driver a sniff of victory. If Sebastian didn’t win by 20 seconds then it was because he had such a margin of safety he would turn the engine down and roll across the line without stressing out the car or himself.

Apparently Mclaren would prefer to have a slow pit stop than send out their car with a wheel nut not securing the wheel to the car. Another example of startling insight from the mind of David Coulthard. Without him where would we be? Watching SKY I guess.

Coulthard also feels the pole position grid slot is on the wrong side of the track as it ‘always’ favors the 2^nd placed driver apparently on the fastest side of the track. This statement was of course disproved by the start of the race and Rosberg racing away form the field to maintain his pole lead. More bafflingly his point was even disproved by his own clips. The BBC played two clips to back up Coulthard’s argument but in both cases we saw a Red Bull on pole which was angled across the track to block the 2^nd place driver, Thus as the 2^nd place guy accelerates forwards the pole sitter gives up his own lead by focusing on defense rather than attack. The argument was completely shot down by the fact that in both clips the 3^rd placed driver accelerated out and around the pole sitter from the same side of the grid.

According to David F1 drivers “get” overstear. Implying as usual that F1 drivers are guilty of nothing as they are the poor unwitting victims of overstear, understear, locking brakes etc. Poor babies are never to blame for anything are they?

Brundles’ departure seems to have let Coulthard loose and he now passes judgment in a rather snotty manner on all team radio broadcasts that feature an engineer giving the driver some advice.

Coulthard highlight of the race – “Clearly the Red Bull is a faster car” as the Red Bull was trying and failing to catch the Force India. Clearly how? If one car is out pacing another, is faster in a straight line, and the speed traps support this, how is the Red Bull a faster car? If he had said ‘better’ than that would have been a subjective point and not one to argue but “faster”? Coulthard was left looking more foolish by his statement immediately being followed by Vettel coming onto his radio and saying “I’m nowhere on the straights!” What are you on about Coulthard?

Gary the pit man and Coulthard repeatedly say “obviously”. Is what they’re saying obvious? If it is why are they bothering to say it? Their job is to offer clever, witty, entertaining insight.

Coulthard is obsessed with talking tyres. Is there any need for the races or even the cars? Would David in fact be more happy with a tyre test? A wheel mounted on a frame spinning on tarmac for as long as the tyre takes to wear out? Exciting? Well for David and a few others on the BBC team hugely so!

Week 3
	Predictor	Points
1	Becx	70
2	Alan D	69
3	Jack	61
4	Alan WA	58
5	Alex	57
=	Simon	57
=	James	57
8	George	50
9	Martin	29

So Becx is top of the league after 3 races. Becx was also joint top scorer this weekend with Simon and James due to the Button 2^nd place and 5^th place in qualifying.

There was mention of clarification of the rules regarding a driver getting a grid penalty. Although other prediction leagues may award points based on where the driver qualifies rather than where the driver lines up on race day after penalties, we here at Fantasy F1 Prediction League want our competitors to experience all the real highs and lows of being the driver so if you predict a driver that qualifies 5^th but due to a penalties lines up 10^th on the grid on race day then you receive the points for qualifying 10^th. This may seem harsh but I think brings a sense of the joy and or disappointment a diver will feel after penalties have shaken the grid a little. For example this rule on this occasion punished AlanD who predicted Hamilton for pole so rather than the 9 points for second that would have been received based on qualification position 2^nd instead 4 points are awarded for the 7^th position that Hamilton actually lined up after penalties. On the flip side I predicted Schumacher for pole. He qualified 3^rd giving me 8 points but after penalties I received 9 points. I will apply this rule all season as it has been applied in previous seasons. This might take points from you or award you points you didn’t imagine could be yours.
It could happen to you.

Bahrain 22/04/12 Good luck