Its funny how three days ago seemingly can be a blur, since I did indeed gorge Thyself upon all three days of SPEED’s Formula 1 television coverage plus the always entertaining F1 Debrief; which satirically ended with Professor Matchett telling ‘Hobbo whilst plugging the new video game: Everyone ontrack around you is FASTER than you, can you please confirm that David Hobbs; Hya!
Yet, I really don’t recall anything overly riveting ‘bout Friday’s Free Practise-2 ‘Telie coverage, perhaps since I got up in-time to watch it live at 6:30AM? As I do recall much blather being expended upon Mark ‘Handlebarz Webber’s new helmet, designed by the winner of some charity contest; along with babbling on ‘bout Master ‘Zebb’s new “Blingy” sparkly helmet, as Vettel was fastest in both practice sessions. Oh yeah, I recall Team ‘Willy’s Bruno Senna clouting the wall and causing a REAL red flag stoppage period...
Saturday’s ‘Qualie session was fairly entertaining, as the Booth Boyz thoroughly expected Vettel to snatch Pole after having been fastest in every practice session... Thus, I was surprised when “Louise” ‘JAGUAR Hamilton pulled a flyer out of the bag and vaulted to P1, but the real surprise of Q3 was Williams Pastor Maldonado, who nary a word was spoken about until qualifying was over, when the SPEED Boyz mumbled in disbelief saying surely not only was Hamilton wondering where he’d come from but Vettel musta been asking himself the same question, as Maldonado nipped the German for second en route to securing his second front-row starting position.
Yet in Pastor’s defense, I did see that he finished fifth quick in Q2 and does seem to like street circuits and perform well upon them. Yet even more entertaining was the unique punishment handed out to Marussia’s rookie piloto Charles Pic who did a B-I-G NoNo when passing others ontrack whilst a red flag was thrown for Caterham’s Vitaly ‘VO5 Petrov’s stricken race car...
Yet on the flip side, the Marussia of team leader Timo Glock finished an impressive twelfth, three places ahead of Caterham’s ‘KOVY (Kovalainen) and without KERS... Thus wouldn’t it be funny if Marussia became the first of the “Junior Teams,” nee Caterham, Hispania and Marussia to score the almighty F1 Constructors points? As I’d expect this honour to go to Caterham instead; as Sunday’s race was looking like somewhat of a snoozer with Hamilton leading from Pole, while both Vettel and Hamilton’s teammate ‘JENSE had gotten around Maldonado, who then settled into fourth place. But the race changed dramatically when Hamilton’s gearbox suddenly went south - forcing Lewis to retire as the in-car replay played the narly sounds of his gearbox tearing itself apart followed by a delayed radio transmission saying; we did the best we could yesterday - great drive up to then Lewis...
And although Vettel would lead the rest of the race en route to victory, it was a real Donnybrook behind him, with not one but two safety car periods and lots of hard fought passing, and a great battle over the podium’s final step between Maldonado and ‘Fredrico Suave (Alonso) before Williams informed Pastor he needed to retire due to hydraulics issue; SHEISA!
As it was an even crueler fate played upon Maldonado’s teammate Bruno Senna who suffered a Hydraulics failure on the races very final lap...
And I just LOL’ed over DER TERMINATOR’s apparent brain fade, when the elder statesman rammed an unsuspecting “JEV,” (Jean-Eric Vergne) the youngest driver on the grid up his Scuderia Toro Rosso’s tailpipe; Aye Karumba! As I had to play back the Mercedes GP engineer’s radio message a few times as he was heard incredulously saying “What was that???” As Michael Schumacher has since been given a 10-grid spot penalty for Suzuka...
While I read somewhere that it was Herr Sckewmacher’s seventh retirement in fourteen races this season; Hmm? 50% finishing rate, Ahem! I think its time to hang up your helmet Michael.
Thus Vettel led Button and Alonso across the stripe, en route to his 23rd victory and clawed back 10-points from current points leader Alonso, who with six races remaining is 29-points ahead, with previous second place man Hamilton
And I’m not sure if I agreed with the penalty upon Webber who apparently gained an advantage over Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi
when passing for the final points position - who was subsequently given a 20-second penalty which ironically vaulted “K-Squared’s” (Kobayashi) teammate Sergio Perez to P10...
Stats
Drive of the Race
Surely this must go to la Scuderia’s Felipe Massa, who suffered a cut tyre in the beginning, dropped all the way to stone last before racing his way up to eighth place after an exhilarating rally style pass of ‘K-Squared. As SPEED’s Willie Buxom (Will Buxton) rightfully quipped; give him a contract and a set of new (under) pants!
Trivia
Funny to find out via SPEED’s StatRatt that I was actually in attendance as a fresh faced lad at Formula 1’s last completely dry race to incur the 2hr time limit, which occurred at the 1991 Iceberg Grand Prix at Phoenix, Arizona; CRIKEYS! Although apparently there weren’t any red flags, just the fact that the season opener was 81-laps in duration, which required 2h00m47.828s (2-hours) for Ayrton Senna to complete aboard his Mclaren-Honda V-12 ahead of arch nemesis Alain Prost’s Ferrari and Nelson Piquet’s Benetton-Ford, shod with Pirelli tyres...