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.