The F1 grid visited Fernando Alonso’s hometown over the weekend for the 2010 European Grand Prix in Valencia, Spain. Since F1 started visiting Valencia the races have always been more than eventful. This year was no exception! Things started out normal enough, with Sebastien Vettel on the pole and the McLaren cars not far behind. However, when the lights went out things immediately got dicy. First Vettel got into Hamilton at the first corner and damaged Hamilton’s front left tire. Lewis fought with some severe vibrations until he was able to get into the pits and have his crew address the problem.
The real fireworks came just after the halfway point of the race. Mark Webber was barreling down on an off-pace Hekki Kovalainen. Hekki knew that he was off the pace and attempted to make room for Mark to go by but, Mark already picked the path he would take and Hekki crossed it. The resulting collision had Webber nearly flipping over in mid-air before landing right side up. Luckily Webber was just shaken and stirred but not seriously hurt.
Mark Webber/Hekki Kovalainen incident:
This nasty incident naturally brought out the safety car and that is when things really got interesting. As the safety car came out the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felpe Massa followed instructions per the rules and lined up behind the car, slowing down. Lewis Hamilton actually passed the saftey car which is a big no-no. As the race went on the race stewards announced that Lewis would face a drive through penalty. But Lewis’ pace was so fast and he was so far ahead that despite having to take a leisurely cruise through the pit lane he did not lose a single position. Ferrari was furious about this had have been spouting off about it ever since.
While all this drama was going on Sebastian Vettel was busy putting a 14 second gap on the rest of the pack. The young German kept things smooth and drove his Red Bull Racing Renault to a victory, making him the third different winner in Valencia in the last three years. Lewis still remains the leader in the points but with Mark Webber’s accident Sebastien was able to pass his teammate in the points standings. Good job Sebastien! You can check out the race re-cap by the SPEED trio.
There was talk after the Bahrain GP that perhaps the FIA took the gonads out of F1 competition with their new rules and such. In fact some were even referring to the Bahrain GP as the “Boring GP”. However all that was erased over the weekend in Australia. There was a ton of passing and dicing, including a demolition derby into turn one during the first lap. As I suspected Sebastien Vettel was on a mission to redeem the win he felt was rightfully his after his dominating performance at Bahrain was nullified by a busted header during the final laps.
This time Vettel shot his way to the front and wasn’t going to let a cracked exhaust header keep him from victory. Technically he accomplished this goal, because it wasn’t a cracked exhaust header that kept him from victory it was a busted wheel! Once again a dominant performance was dashed by a car malfunction. You can imagine that someone from Renault is getting yelled at right now by the young German.
After Vettel was taken out of the race by his own car Jenson Button took over the lead and held on as a epic battle between hometown boy Mark Webber, Robert Kubica, Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa, and Fernando Alonso raged on behind him. But those guys weren’t able to kick up enough dust to disturb Jenson’s drive and he cruised along to victory followed by Kubica (2nd) and Massa (3rd).
I would have loved to see Mark Webber win in his home country or Lewis get a repeat win in the place where he made his F1 debut but Jenson Button was just delt the right hand in this round. It looks like the old McLaren/Ferrari battle may be making a comeback for 2010.
I found this vid of the first roll-out of BMW Sauber’s entry into the 2009 F1 Season. Last year Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld really brought it to the entire grid and remained championship contenters for more than half way through the season. I wonder how well they’ll do with their new equipment?
In a hard fought season between Robert Kubica, Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa, and Lewis Hamilton a conclusion was finally reached over the weekend in Brazil. As Formula 1 2008 came to a close Kubica and Raikkonen were mathmatically out of the championship chase and it came down to Felipe and Lewis.
As the points stood Lewis only needed to net a 5th place finish to lock out Felipe and secure the title. However it looked as if the Vodafone McLaren team over compensated by litterally setting up the car and their strategy as a 5th place contender. The plan worked out for most of the race however towards the end it began to fail as Red Bull bad-ass Sebastien Vettel snatched 5th place away from Lewis during the last 3 laps while Massa was in first place.
Due to extremely worn and graining tires combined with a wet track Lewis struggled to take 5th back from the blazing fast German but was fading fast. Salvation came for Lewis in the last lap when Toyota driver Timo Glock fell back from 4th place also due to worn tires which allowed both Vettel and Hamilton to blow by. This controversial occurance placed the Brit back into 5th place thus securing his championship crown as he crossed the line.
I couldn’t help but hurt for Massa as he and his team were litterally informed at the last possible moment that they had not won the championship. Cameras captured the very moment when Felipe’s father was jumping up and down cheering then the imediate drain of joy from his face and the other red coats as they were told the unfortunate news that Lewis swooped the title away.
I also couldn’t help but get a tad emotional as I saw Lewis take the title and celebrate with his team, family, and friends. A while back it had been a dream of mine to be the first African American in Formula 1 and to win the title. Obviously that isn’t going to happen now and even though the media has generally tried to keep the issue of race out of the amazing story that is Lewis Hamilton I can’t help but feel proud that history was made. If I couldn’t do it I’m happy that Lewis could. Congrats!
With the season coming to a close and a points lead to maintain Lewis Hamilton decided to conquer the track where he bungled his shot at a championship in his rookie year. Already sitting on the pole from qualifying, as soon as the lights went out Lewis sailed off and that was all she wrote. He lead every lap from lights out to checkered flag.
There was a possibility that Hamilton could have clentched the title but that would’ve only happend if he finished the race 6 points ahead of Felipe Massa. However it wouldn’t be as both Ferraris were constantly snarling at the heels of Lews’ McLaren for the entire race.
Going into the Last Race of the season in Brazil only 7 points seperate Lewis and Felipe while Kimi Raikkonen and Robert Kubica are mathamatically eliminated from contention. Can Lewis make history? Or will Felipe grab the title by force in his home country? Unfortunately we’re going to have to wait an agonizing two weeks to find out!
Just one year ago the 23 year old Polish driver had a horrible accident in Canada. His car got off-line launched off a curb and began to roll and eventually bounced off a wall which immediately silenced the 150,000 people in attendance. Due to the state of the art safety equipment Kubica came out with only a sprained ankled and just missed one race before returning to action.
Fast forward to 2008 once again in Canada. Just before the half way mark of the race Lewis Hamilton has a lapse of attention trying to exit the pit lane and plows into the back of 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari. With both top contenders out of the race the top spot on the podium was wide open for any driver that wanted to make the extra reach for it. Sunday Robert Kubica made that reach.
The win in Canada was not only a first for Kubica but also a first for the somewhat new BMW-Sauber team. The victory pushes BMW past Mercedes to reach 2nd place in the constructor’s points.
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