Melbourne, Australia played host to the start of the 2012 Formula 1 GP. Now, for those of you who didn’t watch, here goes a few lines of summary, and then my thoughts:
The race started and someone crashed (I can’t be bothered to look up who). They raced, some overtaking took place and so did some crashes – the best being when Petrov in his Caterham. He slammed into the wall of the home straight, and out came the safety car. A few seconds later a giant tow truck starts driving around the track. Hilarious.
2012 FORMULA 1 QANTAS AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX
| Pos | Driver | Team | Laps | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 58 | 25 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 58 | 18 |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 58 | 15 |
| 4 | Mark Webber | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 58 | 12 |
| 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 58 | 10 |
| 6 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 58 | 8 |
| 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Lotus-Renault | 58 | 6 |
| 8 | Sergio Perez | Sauber-Ferrari | 58 | 4 |
| 9 | Daniel Ricciardo | STR-Ferrari | 58 | 2 |
| 10 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 58 | 1 |
Now… my thoughts!
Did anyone notice that Hamilton has a car that can ace the Red Bull’s, and yet Button made him look like a cripple? Check the results table: Button. Vettel, Hamilton, Webber, Alonso, Kobayashi… Did that just happen? There are a few stories there worthy of comment but none more so than the sense of shock on Lewis’ face on the podium, at the press conference, in the media pit.
This was not meant to happen. When Button joined McLaren in 2010 you will have been hard pressed to find anyone who thought it a good move for the newly crowned world champion. Sure enough in 2010 it looked thus; Lewis was on top. McLaren still his team. But last year the team’s centre of gravity visibly started to switch. Team boss Martin Whitmarsh would smile when talking about JB. Pause, wince and switch to PR mode whenever Lewis was mentioned.
Wow. So what else? I guess fast as they are, we still can’t take Mercedes-Benz seriously; the deeply trick F1-W03 eats its tyres and, apparently its gears too.
Other than that, Perez drove his nuts off. Moving up and down throughout the race – he was 2nd in the pack at one point, and was 7th on the last lap. A crash/suspension failure of Maldonados car meant he should have been 6th, but Räikkönen and Kobayashi took him on the home straight and the poor guy finished 8th.
A final point: My Fiat Panda is faster than the Ferraris at the moment. How did Alonso managed to get that car into 5th? What does need happen however is that Ferrari bosses need to sit down and decide what to do about Massa. He crashed on lap 46 and that was that.
Next weekend is Sepang – Malaysia and their incredibley random weather patterns.