So what do Car Showroom F1 fans think? Is it right for the image of F1 for cars to use five sets of tyres to complete a 66-lap race? Do we really need 82 pit stops in the space of 90-minutes of racing?
Those were the questions being asked last night long before Spain’s Fernando Alonso triumphed in his home Grand Prix for Ferrari, recording his 32nd GP win, nine seconds in front of Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen with Ferrari number two Phillipe Massa third.
The Red Bull duo of Sebastian Vettel and Australian Mark Webber filled fourth and fifth positions with the other Australian driver, Daniel Ricciardo, scoring the final championship point in 10th place in his Torro Rosso.
Mark Webber , Finish Position: 5th, Start Position: 7th“We were struggling for the range and a bit of pace today, to be honest. The Ferraris and the Lotus were in a bit of a different league and that made it hard for us to compete today. I think we got the most out of what we had, particularly as by the first corner I was probably 14th or 15th, so to come back with that result was pretty good. We managed to get back in to the scheme of things, but we were always a little bit on the back foot in terms of tyre wear and ultimately pace. If you don’t have the pace, then you can’t have the magic strategy. I was happy with how I drove and we got some points, but it wasn’t the result we wanted.”
You always felt Ferrari had the measure of everyone else for race pace in Spain – especially when the speed traps showed the Italian cars 13 km/h faster than the Red Bulls.
Of course it all boiled-down to tyre strategy – it always does in F1 these days - and some thought Red Bull held an ace there by saving three sets of new hard-compound tyres for Vettel and Webber. After losing a couple of places on the opening lap, a strategy call brought Webber in early – his first tyre change coming on lap seven.
But here’s how bad the tyre situation has become: Mercedes-Benz-AMG-F1 drivers Niko Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton qualified first and second on the grid, but the notoriously tyre-heavy Benz’ were always going to struggle in the race. In fact as early as lap 12 there was a massive traffic jam behind race-leader Rosberg who was going as slowly as possible to save his Pirellis, causing Alonso to get frustrated before he sailed into the lead entering turn one. Vettel then got lively too and passed the Mercedes and moved into second place at turn six.
In the end Rosberg finished sixth and Hamilton finished 12th – that would be the first time in the long history of the Spanish Grand Prix that a driver who started on the front row of the grid finished outside the top five at race-end.
The good news for the Mercedes team is both cars were quick through the final sector of the lap at the Circuit de Catalunya and that historically translates into a quick car for the next race, the Monaco Grand Prix in two weeks.
But there was no good news for the McLaren team with both Jenson Button and Pedro De La Rosa outpaced by Torro Rosso, Force India and Williams in another embarrassing showing. Talk in pit-lane is heads could roll even amongst some of the senior management at McLaren as early as this week. Whether Aussie Sam Michael is amongst the McLaren management shown the door won’t be known for a few days.
So after all of this carry-on in Spain, the bottom line is we have a terrific battle for the World Championship with Vettel’s points lead now slashed to just four – the German leads on 89 points from Raikkonen on 85, then comes Alonso on 72 and Hamilton on 50.
And just when you think things are relatively quiet on the driver swap front, you can count on triple world champion Niki Lauda to liven things up. Lauda, these days the chief of Mercedes-Benz F1 operation, let it be known he’d love to welcome Vetell (a German) to the ‘Benz team (which has a massive budget with which to pay him).
This caused a ‘blow-up-deluxe’ from Austrian Dr Helmut Marko (conflictingly a confidante of Vetell’s and an advisor to Red Bull). Ah conflict between the Austrians and Germans…nothing changes.
