Fun F1

If the following article is anything to go by, it seems Lewis Hamilton is going as fast off the track as he is on it…

Lewis Hamilton Partying with New Girl

I wonder what Fernando has been up to lately? Probably not having as much fun I’m sure..

But all I want to know is - is it true that Lewis Hamilton can walk on water??   (it sure looks like it in this photo… and how on earth did that girl get up there!? )

Ok, I’m going to say straight out that I have a lot of sympathy for Fernando Alonso in the whole qualifying saga on the weekend where he held up Lewis Hamilton. But I will try to present an objective viewpoint..

This appears to be the sequence of events that occurred during Q3 at the Hungaroring:

1. Hamilton fails to obey a team instruction to move over to allow Alonso an extra fuel-burn lap.
2. Alonso is furious during an earlier pit stop, shaking his first and pointing to the pit wall.
3. The team attempt to return the balance to Alonso by holding him longer in the pits in the final pit stop, thus holding up Hamilton and preventing Hamilton from another flying lap.
4. Alonso just makes it around to have another flying lap and takes pole position.

It was quite funny seeing how many people wanted Alonso’s blood in the forums straight after qualifying (before they knew the facts and found out that Hamilton was the instigator of it all). Some news sites even presented remarkably unbalanced and biased commentary of the event. Some even called Alonso a cheater. It’s funny that no-one questioned why Alonso was so mad earlier in qualifying at this time (I know I did).

My take on the whole thing is that Fernando shouldn’t have been penalised. He followed his engineer’s instructions. Sure, take away McLaren’s championship points but to penalise McLaren and Alonso is bizarre. It should be a case of one or the other is to blame. It’s either the team that caused it or the driver.

It will be interesting to see how McLaren deal with Lewis Hamilton now. Perhaps they’ll finally let Fernando keep his testing data to himself..? Either way I’m just majorly annoyed that we didn’t get to see Hamilton and Alonso both on the front row of the grid, mad as hell with each other, going into the first corner at Hungary..

This has been one of the hardest Grand Prix summaries I’ve ever had to write. And it was one of the most boring Grand Prix to boot! Originally this post was twice as long, half of it being about the whole Hamilton vs Alonso qualifying saga. I decided to strip that out and save it for another post.. So here are the other points regarding the race:

Lewis Hamilton – He’s in the bad books at the moment for disobeying his team during qualifying. The one single positive thing I’ll give Lewis is that he did seem somewhat remorseful in the press conference after the race. Otherwise it was just standard procedure – make no mistakes in the fastest car.

Kimi Raikkonen – Thankfully his car didn’t break!! He certainly had the speed in the race but Ferrari were shocking in qualifying. Some nice aggressive driving too.

Nick Heidfeld – Another solid job from quick Nick. Wish he’d shave that friggin beard off though..

Fernando Alonso – Was driving a fantastic race until he met Ralf Schumacher. Very cautious off the start though, but can be forgiven considering his race was screwed right from the start. Some points are better than none I guess.

Felipe Massa – OMG.. I get railed when I make bad comments about Felipe but I just wonder what his supporters are thinking now? He really needs to take a leaf out of Lewis Hamilton’s book and learn what consistency is.

Honda – I think they should just pack their bags up, work their arses off, and come back next year ready to get back in the points.. or at least the top 10.

Damon Hill commentating – Thanks ITV.. I’ve never seen the movie Dumb and Dumber but now I know what the audio from it sounds like. It’s so funny when this guy makes an analogy.. if only I had jotted some down or had transcripts..

During qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix the tension between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso exploded. With the race now run we’d like to hear your thoughts on what happened.

Are you a Hamilton fan who feels cheated by Alonso (but happy that Lewis came away with the win)? Are you an Alonso fan who feels he was a scapegoat? Or maybe you’re just sick of the championship being “handled” off the track instead of on it.. We’d love to hear your thoughts

What an amazing European Grand Prix. Early on it was a lottery, but later on it certainly came alive time and time again. There’s been a lot of controversy before and after this GP so let’s get straight to the points and cover the controversy elsewhere:

Fernando Alonso – What an adaptable beast this Alonso is. He didn’t put a foot wrong (unless you count his big slide in qualifying). He kept out of trouble early on. He constantly tweaked the car during pit stops. As a result he constantly improved throughout the race while others went backwards.

As for his outburst at Felipe Massa after the race I think that’s great for the sport. A bit of passion! I’m surprised there’s not been any comparisons to Ayrton Senna lately. Interesting that he was so quick to apologise to Felipe (and multiple times during the interviews too). Says a lot about his character. Full marks.

Felipe Massa – Ok, he did well to keep Alonso behind him for a while, but what’s up with all this swerving all over the track? It reminds me of ex-Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine, a.k.a “Irv the Swerve”. Don’t the rules state a driver can only make one move to block the opposition before a corner? It’s no wonder Fernando accused Felipe of deliberately hitting him. Didn’t look too bad from the normal shots but when you see the overhead helicopter view.. Hmmm??

Kimi Raikkonen – Is it Kimi the Ice Man or Kimi the Car Breaker?

Lewis Hamilton – Keeping the engine running was really brilliant. One of the best things he’s done all year. Shame it didn’t result in, well, a good result..

Nick Heidfeld – Sure, Robert Kubica hit him first, but that didn’t mean he had to go hit him back and hit everyone else in the field!!

Mark Webber – Great job from the Aussie! Almost ballsed it up on the last corner but managed to make it a great weekend for us Aussies (Casey Stoner and Chris Vermeulen came 1-2 in the Moto GP the same night). What’s more remarkable is Mark’s car didn’t break!!

ITV Crew – Fantastic job on not showing blatant Lewis Hamilton fanboyishness and bias. James Allen tried his best but managed to keep it at bay. Was it just because Hamilton was having such a bad race? I think they may have had a few complaints because they didn’t even go on much about how Lewis kept the engine running even though they had every right too (yes, feel free to use the words “brilliant”, “smart”, “intelligent” etc etc).