2012 Malaysian Grand Prix Results

I know I’ve expounded on the amazing possibilities and potential benefits of a wet race, and this weekend certainly showed what can happen when the skies open up. It wasn’t as if the rain was unexpected, but I think it caught out people with the intensity of it for those first few laps of the race. By lap nine the whole shebang had been red flagged and the cars sat around on the grid for over a half hour before starting up again. And that is when things became really interesting. Turns out that Ferrari actually made a correct call at a correct time, when in years past it always seemed like they were on the back foot and couldn’t make a correct call to save their lives. But on Sunday in Malaysia, they got it right, and the bells that no one in Maranello thought would ring out this season, did. Fernando Alonso once again proved he is the best driver on the grid by taking a very under performing Ferrari to the checkered flag in first, with the young Mexican Sergio Perez hot on his heels for second.

What some (myself somewhat included) are now calling a conspiracy, saw the surging Sergio consistently gaining on the Ferrari in the closing laps to the tune of upwards of a second a lap. With just over 10 laps left, Perez made a mistake and ran wide in a corner where most drivers will never go off. The fact that the Sauber team are using engines supplied by Ferrari, and that Perez is a protege of the Ferrari young driver program makes the off all the more intriguing. Just before Perez’s off, a message came across the radio telling Perez to be careful and that the team needed the points. His off also happened to be in a spot where he wouldn’t be in any danger of not finishing, as their were no gravel traps around; just wide open tarmac to run off onto. What this means to me is that they don’t want to cross their engine supplier and outshine their ace when that might piss off the people at the house of the Prancing Horse. They want to make sure though, that Ferrari knows what they have in their driver, and that he is ready to ascend to the spot that Felipe Massa currently holds. Massa has been given every opportunity to prove that he can compete with Fernando, including having an entirely new chassis constructed and flown in for this race. And though he was much closer in qualifying, his race pace was abysmal. If he doesn’t perform in China, I do believe that his time in the team is going to be up. The team is trying to score valuable points, and with only one driver ever securing those in the Constructor’s Championship, they will never be higher than fourth, or possibly even fifth this year considering how well Lotus and now Sauber are coming along. The other thing to take into consideration might be that the Ferrari really is a handful and that Alonso is simply driving out of his Spanish mind. It could be like in 2009, when Massa had that spring hit him in the helmet and the team brought in the back up drivers of Luca Badoer and then Giancarlo Fisichella and neither of them could get any sort of performance out of the car. Perhaps this car is like that, and no one will be able to tame the beast the way the Spaniard does. Of course, all of this comes back to that ban on in season testing. As soon as that ban came into play, it seems that Ferrari fell off the face of the earth. They just can’t seem to keep up with developing a car that they can’t test. Regardless, it is going to be extremely interesting to see how this all progresses, but don’t expect Massa to remain in that second car as the teams start the European leg of the tour if he does not respond in a big way three weeks from now in China.

1. Fernando Alonso

2. Sergio Perez

3. Lewis Hamilton

4. Mark Webber

5. Kimi Raikkonen

6. Bruno Senna

7. Paul di Resta

8. Jean-Eric Vergne

9. Nico Hulkenberg

10. Michael Schumacher

British Grand Prix Predictions

The first two practice sessions are now over for the British Grand Prix, and topping both sessions, unsurprisingly, were the Red Bulls. Vettel was fastest in the morning, while Webber took the top spot in the afternoon. Ferrari looked to be on form in the afternoon session, while the McLarens looked to be off the pace. However, as usual, these sessions really don’t tell the whole story and I think the McLarens are definitely holding back. They have the grunt, the F-duct and their new blown diffuser on a circuit that is one of the fastest out there. They will have something to say in both qualifying and the race for sure. As of right now, it looks like the two two powers in Formula One are Red Bull and McLaren, with Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault following them up. Because of this, my results are going to reflect that.

1. Lewis Hamilton – after last year’s disappointing race, I look for “lucky” to take the win, and possibly even pole as well (the first for anything other than a Red Bull) in front of his home crowd

2. Sebastian Vettel

3. Fernando Alonso

4. Jenson Button

5. Felipe Massa

6. Mark Webber

7. Micheal Schumacher

8. Adrian Sutil

9. Nico Rosberg

10. Robert Kubica

This is one of those races that is sort of predictable up front, but in the lower half of the top ten, there are now many cars that can vie for those points positions. At the beginning of the year, this would have been almost a lock for what the top ten would look like, but now, those lower positions are total guesswork.

However, I know that I don’t have to include Bruno Senna in there, because he has been taken out for this race. His replacement? Sakon Yamamoto. Yes, you read that correctly, the man who David Hobbs repeatedly has said should not be driving anywhere near a Formula One car, not even next to the track when a race is going on as his aura will send out bad crash vibes to all the other competitors. His race history is peppered with accidents, mistakes and generally bad driving behavior. As a bonus, my prediction for him? Look for some sort of accident during the race, and for Hobbs-y boy to get on him yet again… and deservedly so. Supposedly Senna will be back in the car for the next race, but this is sort of an odd development to say the least. While you wait for the race, here are some pictures of Sakon crashing his Spyker into the back of Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault.

Oops

Whoopsie

Hamilton’s Jabs and Skipping Practice

In Formula One news, it is now known that Hamilton has been taking shots at Alonso, while some teams are actually skipping the first couple of days of testing in order to try and save some more money.

When Fernando Alonso first switched from Renault to McLaren in 2007, it sent shockwaves through the motor sport community. Not so much for the switch itself, but because he was paired with the sport’s first black driver in Lewis Hamilton. Of course, the fact that Hamilton was right on the pace with the two-time world champ didn’t help matters either. As the season progressed, it became clear that McLaren had a rising star on its hands. However, Alonso was keen to see Hamilton off and infamously stayed in his pit stall longer than he was supposed to, to keep Hamilton from actually setting a lap time that would have netted him pole position. This caused a giant rift within the team and the two have not been on very friendly terms ever since. It has now come out that Hamilton has been taking pot shots at Alonso by saying that he “blew away” Alonso during that season. However, if one simply looks at the points and the wins, they will see that both of the drivers had the exact same number of points and wins. How Hamilton blew Alonso away is anyone’s guess, though he certainly did do that at certain points during the season. But not the whole way through. To suggest otherwise is foolish and I can’t wait to see the Spaniard clean up Hamilton all year long with the exceptions being the first couple of races so he can learn the new car. As we saw this past season, even a seasoned veteran couldn’t come to grips with a car that he simply raced and didn’t practice with. But Alonso is a better driver than Fisichella any day, so I’m sure he’ll do just fine.

In other news, it seems that some teams, including Force India and Red Bull have said that they will skip the first test to concentrate on their cars and fine tune them in the wind tunnel. Really though, this is just a way to save money. They can claim whatever they want, but in the end, its all about the greenbacks. The Red Bull team doesn’t ever seem to be too concerned with the performance of their cars on the track, because they have a genius wind tunnel guy, and that is where they will make up most of their pace, so I sort of believe them more. But for Force India, I think they need to work on the fundamentals more because their car is really fast in a straight line, but just like many American muscle cars, they sort of suck when it comes to a corner. Who else is ready to get this thing under way? I know I am!