Anyone fancy a protest?
Controversially it was announced that the Bahrain Grand Prix would go ahead despite opposition from almost everyone and the events that were happening in Bahrain both last year and again recently haven't seen the postponement of the 2012 race like the 2011 event. Reaction to the news has been mixed but it seems that the decision is final and there will once again be F1 cars in the Gulf state. The last race was held at the start of the 2010 season and by all accounts was the dullest race of the season with durable tyres and little overtaking with the only action at the front being a problem with Sebastian Vettel dropping him from first to fourth giving Fernando Alonso a win on his Ferrari debut with Felipe Massa finishing second, how that must feel a long time ago now for both the drivers and the team. Thankfully the painful extended modifications on the track have been abandoned for this year and the 'old' spec layout used from 2004-9 will be used which wasn't actually to bad and with DRS, KERS and the Pirelli tyres should provide for close racing and numerous overtakes.
Nico Rosberg will go into the Grand Prix weekend on the back of his best weekend in the sport. After taking his maiden pole by a margin on Saturday he successfully converted this into a maiden victory by winning by over 20 seconds from the Mclaren pair of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. The Mclarens battled various traffic issues and pit stop problems to claim the podium places in a titanic scrap where, at one point, only a handful of seconds seperated 2nd-10th. It is surprising that with so many cars in very close proximity for over half of the race that there was no crashes and barely any contact but there were cars flying about (in Webber's case literally) as cars hit the cliff with Kimi Raikkonnen being the primary case has he slipped from second to 14th as the tyres gave up on him and he even lost 8 places on one lap and that was without any spins or damage.
Over at Red Bull it is a complete contrast to 12 months ago as Sebastian Vettel struggles to get on the podium let alone win races while Mark Webber currently holds the upper hand in the team by leading 3-0 in qualifying and being higher in the drivers championship. This current superiority was emphasised late on in the Chinese Grand Prix when he drove around the outside of Vettel down at turn 14. Without the EBD the Red Bull has lost it's superiority over the rest of the field and this season is a true test of Vettel's racecraft and a true evaluation of where he stacks up as one of the great world champions and at the moment I would say he was a 6-7/10 as he has made some good overtaking moves and apart from a puncture in Malaysia has always moved forward on the grid from his starting position, but then that wasn't hard to do in China considering he started 11th on the grid, his lowest qualifying position since 2009 when Brawn were running riot.
The problems continue at Ferrari as Fernando Alonso fought the car to finish in 9th which could have been higher but for a combination of tyre of degradation and traffic at the wrong times that cost him time, but this is still a lot stronger than Massa in the sister Ferrari who continues to show that he shouldn't be a Ferrari driver after a mediocre race to 13th, he is showing almost no signs of improvement and he is rarely threatening the points these days let alone the podium and the championship challenging days of 2007 and 2008 must feel like a long time ago, if there isn't any improvement surely this will be his final year in a Ferrari seat.
So far 2012 has seen 3 different race winners in 3 races with Lewis Hamilton leading the championship from team mate Jenson Button despite Button winning the Australian Grand Prix which shows that Hamilton is getting back his consistency which won him the 2008 championship and shows that he has got over the demons of 2011 which is only a good thing for the championship fight with numerous people already showing that they are capable of fighting for the championship and today perhaps Rosberg threw his hat into the ring as a possible contender, it is certainly has the potential to be one of the closest championships in recent years and makes a change from the Red Bull dominated 2011 with Vettel steamrollering the field.
For Galahads brilliant circuit write up, see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/bahrain-international-circuit/
Controversially it was announced that the Bahrain Grand Prix would go ahead despite opposition from almost everyone and the events that were happening in Bahrain both last year and again recently haven't seen the postponement of the 2012 race like the 2011 event. Reaction to the news has been mixed but it seems that the decision is final and there will once again be F1 cars in the Gulf state. The last race was held at the start of the 2010 season and by all accounts was the dullest race of the season with durable tyres and little overtaking with the only action at the front being a problem with Sebastian Vettel dropping him from first to fourth giving Fernando Alonso a win on his Ferrari debut with Felipe Massa finishing second, how that must feel a long time ago now for both the drivers and the team. Thankfully the painful extended modifications on the track have been abandoned for this year and the 'old' spec layout used from 2004-9 will be used which wasn't actually to bad and with DRS, KERS and the Pirelli tyres should provide for close racing and numerous overtakes.
Nico Rosberg will go into the Grand Prix weekend on the back of his best weekend in the sport. After taking his maiden pole by a margin on Saturday he successfully converted this into a maiden victory by winning by over 20 seconds from the Mclaren pair of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. The Mclarens battled various traffic issues and pit stop problems to claim the podium places in a titanic scrap where, at one point, only a handful of seconds seperated 2nd-10th. It is surprising that with so many cars in very close proximity for over half of the race that there was no crashes and barely any contact but there were cars flying about (in Webber's case literally) as cars hit the cliff with Kimi Raikkonnen being the primary case has he slipped from second to 14th as the tyres gave up on him and he even lost 8 places on one lap and that was without any spins or damage.
Over at Red Bull it is a complete contrast to 12 months ago as Sebastian Vettel struggles to get on the podium let alone win races while Mark Webber currently holds the upper hand in the team by leading 3-0 in qualifying and being higher in the drivers championship. This current superiority was emphasised late on in the Chinese Grand Prix when he drove around the outside of Vettel down at turn 14. Without the EBD the Red Bull has lost it's superiority over the rest of the field and this season is a true test of Vettel's racecraft and a true evaluation of where he stacks up as one of the great world champions and at the moment I would say he was a 6-7/10 as he has made some good overtaking moves and apart from a puncture in Malaysia has always moved forward on the grid from his starting position, but then that wasn't hard to do in China considering he started 11th on the grid, his lowest qualifying position since 2009 when Brawn were running riot.
The problems continue at Ferrari as Fernando Alonso fought the car to finish in 9th which could have been higher but for a combination of tyre of degradation and traffic at the wrong times that cost him time, but this is still a lot stronger than Massa in the sister Ferrari who continues to show that he shouldn't be a Ferrari driver after a mediocre race to 13th, he is showing almost no signs of improvement and he is rarely threatening the points these days let alone the podium and the championship challenging days of 2007 and 2008 must feel like a long time ago, if there isn't any improvement surely this will be his final year in a Ferrari seat.
So far 2012 has seen 3 different race winners in 3 races with Lewis Hamilton leading the championship from team mate Jenson Button despite Button winning the Australian Grand Prix which shows that Hamilton is getting back his consistency which won him the 2008 championship and shows that he has got over the demons of 2011 which is only a good thing for the championship fight with numerous people already showing that they are capable of fighting for the championship and today perhaps Rosberg threw his hat into the ring as a possible contender, it is certainly has the potential to be one of the closest championships in recent years and makes a change from the Red Bull dominated 2011 with Vettel steamrollering the field.
For Galahads brilliant circuit write up, see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/bahrain-international-circuit/
I like many others CFS, have seen some bias in decisions adversely affecting Lewis Hamilton - Spa 2008 being a case in point - but don't see the wider (and I use this word advisedly) "conspiratorial" side of things in the way you do. The question in my mind is would Hamilton have been punished for overtaking off the circuit (which is not allowed under the rules) had Rosberg not done a very similar thing to Alonso a few laps later. This is something we will never know.
