Canada – The Day After

The Canadian Grand Prix of 2012 held a promise of more surprises, more interesting mix-up of drivers in un-usual places and definitely more uncertainty in the drivers championship.

The race has always been one of my favourite circuits, I can´t remember the last time I was disappointed. Remember last year, when the race was a little bit static – I didn´t say boring! – and then half a lap before the chequered flag and Sebastian Vettel lost it to Jenson Button? Or When Robert Kubica crashed his BMW, only to win the event the following year? There has been so many memorable moments from Canada, that I was sure this was another one.

It wasn´t. Well, for some time it didn´t have the “Oh look at that, is so close” moments I was looking for, but then I realised that I was turning into one of those fans, who always complain when things are going great for the rival, but then makes fun of said rival when my own driver starts winning. Or when someone complains that ‘this is the most boring season ever’ and I once again have to tell the idiot that the overtakings have actually increased 3,000%.

I don´t want to be that guy. That guy, for lack of better word, sucks. What we have instead, is the best season in probably the last 15 years, at least, with very close fights, drivers who are actually risking it, compared to 2011, when everyone kinda gave up if Vettel was on pole. We have overtakings, so much action on the track it´s really difficult to keep track of it and plenty of smashes, and run-ins and incidents and accidents. Absolutely brilliant.

And so was Canada. A brilliant race, where tyre management was absolute key. And the best part was, that that part didn´t get boring. There were those who gambled and won, like Lewis Hamilton who had an extra pitstop so he had fresh tyres. Those tyres were so much faster, that he could pass Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso and take the win, his third in Canada, thus becoming the seventh winner in as many races.

And there were the loser. Alonso´s tyres were shot and he fell back, losing ground to Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez, until they, un-dramatically, overtook the Spaniard for 2nd and 3rd respectively. He knew he had old tyres, but just like Vettel, Alonso could gamble. He could pit, get fresh tyres and perhaps end up in 3rd or 4th or stay out and hope that the others weren´t that fast. They were, Fernando, but what great driving you showed us.

Driver of the Day: Lewis Hamilton

Lewis seemed to be in full control of the situation, even when he spoke on the radio, his voice was calm and almost meditative. And what a great radio call to get, that you are leading, just do this some more. Hamilton seems to be settled very nicely in his role now, after a 2011 he wants to put the lid on. he is back and he is going to win some more races. Absolutely brilliant performance.

What the Hell Moment of the Day: Michael Schumacher

When Michael Schumacher qualified just 9th on the grid, we knew it was going to be very hard for the no 7 man to win the race, It would have been awesome, right? Car number 7, 7 titles in the seventh race of the year. But alas, the old shoemaker had to pit and eventually retire because his DRS got stuck in the ‘open’-position. It´s going from bad to worse for Schumacher, who really looked like he could lift the Mercedes team up to at least a top three position.

Most Anonymous drivers of the Day: Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne

The Toro Rosso drivers came, saw and basically just drove around the circuit de Gilles Villeneuve without anyone noticing. They are not bad drivers, in fact they are pretty good. It looks to me like the car is just not in the right ballpark when it comes to performance. I really don´t know, but I think so. I am not saying Toro Rosso is going to hell in a handbasket, but instead of everyone blaming the drivers, who have only collected half the points as their predecessors did last year after seven races, perhaps it´s time to look at the car. It´s not fast enough!

Driver I Did Not Expect To See Up There: Sergio Perez

Actually, this one could be split in two and rewarded to Romain Grosjean as well. I honestly did not see that Grosjean and Perez should end in 2nd and 3rd. I mean I expected them to do well, but looking at how everyone else managed their tyres, I thought at least Perez´ strategy would fail and he needed one more pit stop. But I must hand it to those guys, they really kept their cool and fully deserves their positions. Perez haven´t scored points since Malaysia, but when he does score points, he really does it! Now it´s just up to the rest of the teams to understand, that when Perez is on a one-stop strategy, copy and paste!

Worst Driver of the Day: No one

No really! I don´t think that there is one driver who just did  a really crappy job, everyone did very well and got the most out of what they had. Sure, Massa´s pace in the race didn´t fully live up to what we saw in qualifying, but I feel it´s time to get off his back for a while. Pedro de la Rosa retired for HRT, but hey it´s Pedro de la Rosa driving a HRT, what did you expect? Same goes for Narain Karthikeyan, I just don´t understand why he is still in F1, when you have at least five drivers from GP2 or other series doing a helluva lot better.

As always the Day After report is simply a way for me to vent some ideas, thoughts or frustrations. 2012 has so far been one of the best seasons in recent memory and as I am getting older, closing in on the big 4-0, my memory will fail and I will hopefully remember every season as the best there ever was.

Thanks for reading.

Official Linkin Park GP iPad App review

The Lotus team announced a few days ago, that they have ‘joined forces’ with has-been soft-rockers Linkin Park for the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend, something that apparently calls for an app. Anyways, it is unclear if it is a driving simulator or , just a trailer for their latest single, “Burn It Down.”

As I am working together with the artist, photographer and brilliant human being par excellence, Warewolf, he has committed a review of the app.

Don´t rejoice just yet…

Read the review here.

Warewolf tells me, he will also be doing reviews of the Red Bull, the Red Bull Racing Spy app, but he will first test it thoroughly during the Monaco Grand Prix.

Top 3 driver´s quotes

Jenson Button, Romain grosjean and Felipe Massa, finished 1-2-3 in the second practice session in Monaco on Thursday afternoon. Here are some of their thoughts.

Jenson Button:
“The most important job today was to try and get a decent high-fuel long-run on the Supersoft tyre – which I don’t think anyone managed. We’ve got to see how the tyre works because its performance will play a considerable role in the race. Still, it was nice to briefly stick that tyre on and see how much grip it has – that gives you a bit of information to look over before Saturday, even though we’ll still get to run that compound again before qualifying. I definitely feel like the car improved from P1 to P2. We tried something different for this afternoon’s session and I was happier with how the car felt. There’s still room for improvement, but we know what direction we want to take.”

Romain Grosjean:
“I think the car is suiting the track pretty well and I love Monaco, it’s good to be here and it’s nice to see so many fans. The car was looking good this morning and this afternoon – we are working in a good direction. Unfortunately it was a bit wet this afternoon and we couldn’t do all the programme we wanted to achieve but as we have a good baseline it shouldn’t be such a big deal. Let’s see what the weather will be like tomorrow and what we can achieve. I think that we are looking good in both conditions.”

Felipe Massa:
“We weren’t able to do as much running as we would have liked because of the light rain that fell this afternoon, but all the same, I am happy with the way things went on this Monaco Thursday. The car seemed to me to be okay right from the start of the first session, with a good balance in all conditions and with slightly better traction than we had expected. Even when we ran the intermediates in the final part of the second session, the feeling was still positive. As for the tyres, we didn’t even fit the supersoft, therefore we can’t say anything about their behaviour, while the softs worked well, also in terms of their degradation. Sure, there is still plenty of work to do to fine tune all the set-up details, but we have an extra day to think about what to do to improve in this area. It’s hard to make predictions about qualifying and, even more so for the race, but definitely we can say the first day of free practice can be considered a positive one.”

Spanish Grand Prix preview – Lotus

Lotus is fast becoming something of a sensation this year, with a fast, competitive and reliable car, as well as two very good drivers. A double podium finish in Bahrain means that the team is third in the constructors standings.

Kimi Raikkonen is looking forward to the Spanish Grand Prix, and believes the team can be competitive in the race. Raikkonen has two race victories from Catalunya.

“I have tested there very many times,” Raikkonen said. “It’s a challenging circuit – great fun with a good car, but not that great with a not so good car. Usually a car going well in Barcelona, goes well everywhere. We had a good car there for the second pre-season test even if the car wasn’t quite together for the first one.The car has improved and I feel more comfortable in it.

“I expect Lotus to be very competitive at Barcelona. It’s going to be very, very close between the top teams. This is the only circuit where the teams have already tested with the new cars, and the set up is crucial as the track changes with the wind and temperature. All the teams have updates for the first European race, which makes it even more interesting and even tighter at the top.“

Team mate Romain Grosjean finished the in-season testing with the fastest laptimes on two occasions, underlining Kimi Raikonen´s comments. And where Michael Schumacher might be struggling with the Pirelli tyres, it´s not a problem for the Lotus boys.

“The difference between compounds is a little bit bigger than it was before,” said Grosjean. “We have seen that it’s really difficult on the strategy side to get the best results. You have to strike a balance between taking sufficient risks to beat your opposition but not so much that you encounter difficulties; equally you lose out from being too conservative. You can gain a lot of time from an aggressive strategy, but you can lose a lot of time from an aggressive strategy. Barcelona is the hard and soft tyre allocation. Let’s see how it goes, but I think both compounds work very well on our car. It will be harder for qualifying as the lap time difference between the two compounds will be bigger so maybe we will have to use the soft tyre from Q1 onwards.

“In the test we attended we were P1 after the four days so hopefully we will be there again! Every team is working very hard to develop their cars. We have a good understanding of the E20 after the Mugello test and we hope to bring some new parts to Spain too. It’s always a battle to keep ahead in the race to get faster. As we have seen this season, the competition is very close, and a small improvement can make a huge difference.

“The two last races have been really good, both for the team and for myself. I will give my best in Barcelona and the goal for the next races is to get as far up the driver standings as I can. I still have a lot of things to learn, I’ve only completed four Grand Prix as a full time driver for the season. It’s not too much experience but every Grand Prix I finish is a fantastic experience for me. For sure the podium in Bahrain gives me confidence for Barcelona.”

Grosjean happy with new floor

Romain Grosjean, who topped the time sheets for two days in Mugello this week, said he was very pleased with the upgrades the Lotus team made to the car.

The 2011 GP2 and GP2 Asia Series champion, has had a remarkable start to the re-launch of his F1 career, with 6th and 3rd places in the last two events, his first podium, and able to fend off several of his much more experienced rivals. Lotus is looking like they have an ace up the sleeve this year, with stellar performances from team mate Kimi Raikkonen as well. Raikkonen recently came second in a close contended bout with Sebastian Vettel, as the two drivers were fighting for the win in Bahrain.

In Mugello this week, the E20 received a floor upgrade, as well as some rear suspension updates. Grosjean said:

“It was another nice day today, so I have been lucky with the weather here,” said Grosjean. “We continued to work on the car and have gained more valuable data. We made a big change to the car at lunchtime and everything went according to plan. Mugello puts high demands on the driver, so it’s been a very good experience for me – and quite a workout!

“We were conducting a specific programme of evaluating components, so to be quick relative to our opposition even when we were not looking specifically to try to top the times is satisfying. I’m happy with the progress we’ve made here and looking forward to seeing how well this translates into lap time in Barcelona.”

Grosjean tops the timesheets again

Lotus driver Romain Grosjean topped the timesheets once more, as he put the E20 on the P1 position, after 66 laps completed.

Ferrari was the team most talked about today, as the much anticipated upgrades were installed on the car. Turning vanes, which Felipe Massa tried out a little yesterday, and of course the expected exhaust exits, similar to those on the Red Bull. But As Alonso was about to get the day started, hoping to gain between half a second and eight tenths of a second, he went off. It is still uncertain what went wrong, but the front was damaged and so was the front wing. Alonso lost several hours waiting in the garage, as the team scrambled to get his car back out. Still, the Spaniard completed 98 laps to finish third.

Sergio Perez´ car caught on fire in the pitlane, but he was soon out, completing 118 laps, while Pastor Maldonado ran into electrical problems.

So, as Grosjean finished on top, after a fruitful day for some, a frustrating day for others, Vettel ended in second, ahead of Alonso in third and Ricciardo in fourth. Perez fifth, Hulkenberg sixth, Maldonado, Rosberg, Turvet and di Resta finishes off the top ten.

Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock finished 11th and 12th.

1.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus Renault	01:21.035	66
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	01:21.267	106
3.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	01:21.363	98
4.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso	01:21.604	117
5.	Sergio Perez	Sauber	01:22.229	118
6.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India F1	01:22.325	55
7.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	01:22.497	63
8.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes Grand Prix	01:22.579	129
9.	Oliver Turvey	McLaren	01:22.662	99
10.	Paul di Resta	Force India F1	01:23.002	34
11.	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	01:23.169	139
12.	Timo Glock	Marussia	01:23.466	110

Grosjean impresses at Mugello on day 2

Lotus driver Romain Grosjean once again showed speed and general great performance, when he finished the day´s test session on top, sharing the laptime with Kamui Kobayashi.

1:21.603 was the time to beat , both Grosjean, who had 97 laps behind him and Kobayashi with 87 laps, managed to make identical laptimes on the bone dry circuit under a perfect blue sky, where most of the drivers focused on tyres and aerodynamics.

Sebastian Vettel finished two tenths behind Grosjean and Kobayashi, with Mark Webber a further tenth and a half down in fourth. Felipe Massa racked up 106 laps for fifth, Jean-Eric Vergne in sixth sat nicely in sixth place, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in seventh. Mercedes´ Michael Schumacher completed a massive 144 laps to finish eighth place, with Charles Pic and Vitaly Petrov finishing off the top ten.

Gary Paffett and Timo Glock ahead of Paul di Resta and Bruno Senna in last place for Williams.

1.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus Renault	01:21.603	97
2.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	01:21.603	87
3.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	01:21.825	64
4.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	01:21.997	54
5.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	01:22.257	106
6.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso	01:22.424	65
7.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso	01:22.759	22
8.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes Grand Prix	01:23.404	144
9.	Charles Pic	Marussia	01:23.982	46
10.	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	01:24.312	112
11.	Gary Paffett	McLaren	01:24.480	59
12.	Timo Glock	Marussia	01:24.499	37
13.	Paul di Resta	Force India F1	01:24.749	14
14.	Bruno Senna	Williams	01:24.842	100

China – The Day After

The 2012 Chinese Grand Prix was an eye-opener for the entire field of cars, as Mercedes managed to lock out the front, albeit due to Hamilton´s penalty, but there cannot be any doubt the fact, that Mercedes has found gold.

The season has started without the ‘usual’ win for Vettel, and the young double world champion is struggling to find the right pace. Frerrari is also not where they want to be, but Alonso´s 9th place is probably where the team should expect to be the next few races. Of course no one can dismiss the idea that Mercedes is aided by their controversial, but legal, W-duct system, but after three races we still cannot be absolutely sure that one driver is stronger than the other. At least not for the moment.

So to the awards:

Driver of the day: Nico Rosberg

Who else could be the driver of the day? Nico Rosberg wins his first race, a long time coming after debuting in 2006. He started by being impressively fast in his first race, and did show some very good performances over the next couple of seasons. But it has always been a question of being ‘almost there’, and ‘good-effort-but-you-need-a-little-bit-more’. I am not saying that Rosberg is now the man to beat, by no means, but he has certainly showed that Mercedes are in a lot better shape than they were last year. Well done to Rosberg, a huge congratulations are in order, and we are all looking forward to seeing more from the poplar driver.

The That´s Actually Not So Bad Award: Romain Grosjean

When Lotus announced that they had secured the services of Romain Grosjean, a lot of pundits and fans thought that the team had seriously lost it. After a tough half season for Renault back in 2009, replacing Nelson Piquet after the Singapore Sling Scandal, sorry but that´s what I call it, no one thought that he could do much. But the Lotus is fast, it looks like they are in good shape to take some points from the top teams and Grosjean seems to be coping a lot better with the tyres. He has also proved that he really has talent, and I for one, and tipping my hat to the young driver,

The Oh Come On Award: Kimi Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen was running in second at one time in China, but ver the course of two laps he lost ten positions and ended up well outside the points, in a lonely 14th place. I understand that He is coming back after a two year hiatus and he needs to learn about the new tyres. But so does Grosjean, and he is managing it much better. Lotus could well have pitted Kimi a few laps earlier, sent him back out and he could have scored fourth perhaps. The tyres simply ran out of performance in the last ten laps, and the Finn couldn´t help the many drivers overtake him. A tough result to cope with, but at least now Lotus knows how Kimi uses his tyres. Next time….

The Back To The Drawing Board Award: Toro Rosso

I could easily give this one to HRT, on account of them being the slowest team. But Toro Rosso seems to have been taking a few steps backwards this season. Six points in the first three races, none from China, is disappointing. I would have hoped to see Verge and Ricciardo a bit further up on the standings. Back to the drawing board, guys.

The Thank You For Not Whining Anymore Award: Red Bull

Red Bull pointed fingers at Mercedes because of the wing system that were subsequently deemed legal, but has been whining about almost anything and everything since the first race. And they then decided to sneak out the side door when Lotus lodged the official protest against the wing system, and left Lotus with the losing arguments. Still, I see a team that has now realised that they themselves can change the performance, and I am looking forward to seeing it.