14 May – Why Felipe Massa Has To Go (And The Sooner The Better)

I know what you must be thinking, “How insensitive can this guy, this American be?”  I can assure you that I am not being insensitive, (I never write anything that could ever be interpreted as such) and I will attempt to explain my reason for such a bold statement, and besides I used up most of my insensitivity for Rubens, Heidfeld and Trulli in an earlier post.  -ha ha-

Before I make my case, I just want to say that I have a huge amount of respect for Massa. He is a race winner, and despite the fact that someone wins every other Sunday, not many drivers can claim the distinction of winning even one race, on only one weekend, let alone 11. In addition to his 11 wins, Massa has 15 pole positions, and 33 podiums. He has amassed 584 points, and 14 fast laps. He is an incredibly skilled driver in a sport that has no time for anything but being the best at what you do.

Massa came within a cat’s whisker of winning the championship in 2008. Had he not had an engine expire on the last lap of the European GP at Valencia, or a pit stop that went terribly wrong via the refueling rig in Singapore, he would have been champion in 2008 even before the last race. However the championship went down to the last race in Massa’s home GP in Brazil — a contest so gripping I almost put my foot through the floor as I watched the last lap unfold, in which Hamilton passed Timo Glock on the last lap on the last turn to take 5th position which yielded Hamilton the exact number of points needed to secure the championship. Incidentally, Massa, who needed to win the race to keep his championship hopes alive, did just that.

Everyone still remembers how for a brief moment Massa was champion when he crossed the finish line first; we also remember how gracious and sportsmanlike he was in that next moment of defeat when Hamilton pulled ahead of Glock and took that championship away. It’s especially poignant considering that it now appears as though that is as close as Massa might ever get to the big prize. We also remember the horrible accident that could have easily taken his life when an errant spring found a way to jettison itself from his countryman’s car at the 2009 Hungarian GP. We remember what great courage Massa had as he got back in the car the following year and continued to race.

For all of these and many more reasons Felipe Massa is a class act. Period.

Now for the slightly insensitive part. For several reasons that I am about to make clear his time at Ferrari is now passed.

#1. From purely a tenure standpoint Massa needs to go. Lets take a look at some of Ferrari’s other drivers, many legendary figures in the sport, and compare the amount of time that they got to wear the red overalls.

- Eddie Irvine – he raced for the Scuderia for four years
- Rubens Barrichello was at Ferrari from 2000 to 2006 – 6 years
- Jean Alesi raced for Ferrari for 5 years
- Gerhard Berger had two stints each for 3 years
- Nigel Mansell, he had only 2 years as a driver for the fabled constructor
- Alain Prost, only 2 years as well.  (And he is a four-time world champion)
- Mr. Ferrari himself, M. Schumacher, his tenure at 11 years is the longest, but when you’re racking up championships (5 in all), and making a shitload of money, it must be kind of difficult get fired or quit.

This will be Massa’s 7th year in a red car and I think there might even be one more as a test driver when that was still allowed in F1. Anyway I think you get the picture. As you can clearly see it would not be anything out of the Scuderia’s normal modus operandi to can, (oops some insensitive just snuck itself in), I mean part ways with Massa seven years in with no championships. But that’s not even the only reason.

#2. This one is obvious, and that is the issue of constructor points and the Constructors’ Championship at the end of each Formula 1 season. (Editor’s Note: For you rookie fans, every Constructor (team) has two drivers that drive essentially identical cars, and their total points are what is counted towards winning the Constructors’ Championship. Of course every team wants their driver to be a champion, but to win the Constructor’s Championship is their true goal because it proves their technology was the best.) Massa has not added a great deal to Ferrari’s totals in the last three years. Lets hypothesize about what could have been, maybe should have been, shall we?

You might think that I am going to compare Massa to Alonso, but you would be incorrect on that one. But don’t worry, we will get to Alonso later on and maybe a tiny bit of not-so-sensitive blogging. Back to the point, lets compare Massa’s numbers to some other drivers. In 2010, for McLaren, Button had 214 and Hamilton had 240. For Red Bull, same year, Vettel had 256, and Webber finished the year with 242. Are you starting to see a pattern? In the two other top teams both drivers are consistently contributing similar numbers to the teams’ overall points tally. The average amount of points that Button, Hamilton, Vettel and Webber each secured for their teams in 2010 is 238. Now I know that this is all speculation but if Massa was as consistent a Ferrari contributor as the other top drivers were for McLaren and Red Bull, the new total for the team championship for Ferrari for 2010 could have been 490, only 9 points behind Red Bull for second instead of third, and ahead of McLaren which had a total of 454. And this does not even take into account Massa taking points off those other drivers and pushing the other teams’ totals down, which likely would have happened if Massa was performing on a comparable level. So you can see how its possible that Ferrari, despite losing the drivers’ part of the championship could have at least won the Constructors’ Championship if Massa was driving up to par. I am not going to bore you with the numbers from 2011, as it will be redundant (and due to the fact that the BR7 in Vettel’s hands just destroyed the competition) and I don’t want to beat this point to death, and of course I don’t want to be insensitive.

So let’s just skip to a three-year comparison of Alonso and Massa, season-to-date. In 2010, 2011, 2012, Alonso scored respectively 67, 51, and now 61 points as of the first five races. MASSA HAS SCORED 49, 24 (ouch), AND (GET READY FOR THIS ONE) A WHOPPING 2 <pause> points. AND NO I DID NOT FORGET TO TYPE THE OTHER NUMERAL. That ain’t being insensitive folks (folks is an American term, similar to mates) that is just the cold hard truth. Ouch babe, my eye…

#3. This one, I’m not going to lie, is a little closer to my heart. And that is the issue of Alonso and his campaign to become world champion for Ferrari and to enter into the special group of 3x world champions. Simply put, when Massa underperforms Alonso is not able to enjoy the same benefit that the other four protagonists enjoy. Which is to say that Massa is not taking points away from Button, Ham, Vettel, and Webber. So as my favorite blogger James Allen would say, lets delve deeper into this issue, of insensitivity, I mean, of points and the lack of them and see how at least in 2010 Massa could have helped Alonso.

Lets take the very first race, Bahrain, to begin. This is a good one to illustrate how important it is to have both cars in the same grouping to yield the most points. In this race Alonso finished first with 25 points and Massa second with 18 points. In this case Massa’s performance was a benefit — Ferrari and ultimately Alonso benefitted because Massa was able to push Vettel further down the order and thus Vettel gathered only 12 points on that day for fourth place instead of 15 for third. That’s 3 points less for Vettel right there. Keep that in mind when we get to the season-ending totals.

Now lets look at Red Bull and McLaren and see how they were able to maximize points not necessarily by design, but by both drivers racing very well and finishing close to each other. In all these races, teammates finished 1st & 2nd, getting 25 points for first and 18 points for second. In Malaysia Vettel 25 Webber 18, in China Button 25 Hamilton 18, in Spain Vettel 25 and Webber 18, in Monaco Webber 25 Vettel 18, in Turkey Ham 25 Button 18, and in Canada Ham 25 and Button 18. It’s logical, right? Identical cars, different but closely matched drivers, one is going to come out on top but the other should not be far behind.

If we look at the last part of the season where Alonso and Ferrari really started to put it all together, in two crucial races that Alonso won, Massa was nowhere near keeping pace with him. Now it is true that Massa did pull over for Alonso in Hungary and that was a massive boost, so kudos to him. But that’s about all he did to help that year.

Remember Alonso lost the 2010 championship by 5 points and let me be very clear about this part, because I am an equal opportunity insensitive blogger even though Fernando is my main man. Alonso jumped the start in China, resulting in a drive-through penalty. He crashed out so badly in the final practice at Monaco, that the whole chassis had to be rebuilt, which resulted in him not qualifying and having to start the GP from the pit lane (which is behind last place, FYI), thus ruining any chance of a decent result although he miraculously did manage to finish 5th for 8 points. Finally, he made a very poor decision in the way he passed Kubica in England that also resulted in a drive-through penalty. Remove any one of one of these lame mistakes and the championship is his. And as Alonso said himself, “the championship was not lost at the last race.” and definitely not because a team member on the pit wall made an error, or his team member in the other car didn’t help him out. In the end you have only yourself to rely on in F1. However, its nice if you have a teammate that can back you up if you falter a little. Definition of teammate, no? That being said, lets look at the points tally for the Ferrari boys from that season.

Alonso-252 points, Massa-144 points. Now it is right about here that you should know I don’t care how insensitive I sound, but are you kidding me, a 108 point difference between drivers in the same car? Aargggggghh and %$#*&+_!@^{+;%$ !!!

How about we look at the other drivers that were in the hunt for the championship that year?
Vettel 256, Webber 242 – 14 points difference
Hamilton 240, Button 214 – 26 points difference

I just can’t get it out of my insensitive “you’re only as good as your last race” head that if Massa could have just taken 5 points over the course of the season off of the other contenders, and by now you should know them by name, Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, and Button, Alonso would have won the championship. (As it actually went down, the fact that Alonso came within 5 points of winning the championship basically with no help from his teammate just really points out why he is my guy.) Ferrari is investing nearly 39 million dollars per year on Alonso’s salary, wouldn’t they want to make sure he has every opportunity to succeed by getting him a good teammate?

We all know that Formula One is a cruel sport and many drivers have been fired or let go for far less in regards to performance. We are talking about 5 points. 5 points was the difference that would have given Ferrari its 16th Drivers’ Championship, and Alonso his 3rd world championship. When I think about it, it just gets me all wound up, and I have to go and dig a hole in the back yard to get my mind off what was and what could have been.

Look, it is not my fault that Formula One has become such an intense and insanely scrutinized sport by everyone from the pundits to the people like my lame ass. It is not my fault that the amount of pressure that is heaped on these teams and drivers is bone crushing and can ruin a person of the highest resolve and constitution. This is just the way it is and it is this way in all sports, especially at the highest level of each sport. This is what makes sport so great to watch, so rewarding, so fun and also at times so very painful.

There is a term that I hear the Europeans (mostly the Brits) say all the time. The term is “gutted”; I don’t think there is an equivalent purely American term that we use when our teams lose. Gutted is how I felt after that last race in Abu Dhabi at the end of the 2010 season, and because I am so emotionally invested in this great sport of Formula One and Ferrari, and Fernando Alonso, I don’t care how insensitive this sounds: Are you listening, Ferrari? It is time for a change. The change must happen soon or we will have 2010 déjà vu. It must be done properly, and with the utmost respect, but done it must be. Bitches.

11 May – Just Having A Little Fun

Although blogging is a relatively new hobby of mine, I have been watching Formula One for many years.  During the time Michael and Mika where going at it tong and hammer beginning in 1998 right after Jacque Villenueve won the championship for Williams, I have been either at my place of residence or at someone else’s inviting my friends, girlfriends, my parents, co-workers, people I meet on the street, basically anyone that is willing to put up with a bunch of loud, obnoxious miscreants, to watch the race and all of its drama. Of course we record it when it airs live in the middle of the night and play it back at our convenience. Sadly, it’s not difficult to avoid hearing about F1 race results during the day on Sunday before we watch the race because most of the country doesn’t know it exists.

There was a time that we gathered for every single race, made a whole day out of it, completely wrecking the abode of whoever was the unlucky one to host that day (mostly me), and then spending the entire race screaming at the TV and hitting rewind 100 times (you have to rewind a lot when you are entertaining 30+ people due to the fact that by the time the red lights go out everyone is already smashed and no one is really paying attention anymore or at least not paying attention at the same time. I can assure you that many of us were paying for it at work the next day. Those kinds of F1 parties are a thing of the past. However, for the last few years I invite people over on race day for selected Grand Prix during the season. It is definitely not as crazy, yet we still manage to wreck the place. Tornado is what comes to mind when I have woken up late and enter the kitchen for the first time in the morning. Because we gather less often, I like to rev people up a little with the email invite and get them up-to-date on what they’ve missed since the last gathering. This is in fact how the idea of blogging came about! As this is one of two home GPs for Fernando, and he will have a heavily revised car we thought it was a good weekend for a get-together. Here is the invite I sent out for this past weekend’s GP, I thought you might enjoy reading it:

Here is the deal–a mere 10 points separate the top five drivers in the championship.  What does that mean? (multiple choice)

- That Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel are already the season favorites. NO, compared to last year at this time, definitely not. We have only seen the finger once so far and if that were the one and only time it would suit me just fine. That however probably will not be the case.

- That Lewis finally has a car that can challenge for the championship. NO, he has not won yet which is bad for him, but on the positive side he has not crashed into his teammate or Massa yet. However the season is still young.

- That Mark Webber will have a breakout year now that there is a ban on the blown diffuser that favored his teammate. NO, he is still a number and that number is a 2.

- That Jenson (soon to be the birth name of my first or second child depending on which twin wants to get out of the belly first), who has already won a GP this year, will beat Lewis to a championship in a team that most would consider is Lewis’s team. It would not be overstating the fact that if McLaren were re-named McLewis, most people would not give it a second thought. Uh, but back to the point. That is a big NO.

(Here we go with the fun part)
– That the best and most complete driver on the grid, one Fernando Diaz Alonso, in a car that is quite literally a piece of crap (thanks again Ferrari for producing such a stinker) is still in the hunt and was one of the four different drivers to reach the top step of the podium. If your answer was similar to, or actually was this very statement, then you would be correct.

- That we are in for something special because this race is in Alonso’s home country of Spain would also be correct. And of course it is Alonso.

- That Ferrari is introducing for the most part a completely different car that should be a much-needed step forward and should allow Alonso to challenge for a podium would be correct as well.

- That Alonso is still the best, no matter where he finishes, I will buy that.

- That Alonso could drive an F1 car upside down and underwater, that is how good he is, ok I can see it happening. Just kidding on that one. Hee hee!

It also means that this Sunday (yes, on Mother’s Day) you are invited to watch all possible outcomes of the Grand Prix of Spain (I really don’t care about any other possible outcomes except for Alonso being P1 at the end of it, but whatever). So, go hang with moms in the morning/afternoon and get to my house after. Pre-race show at 430, engines at maximum RPM 5ish.

You know the deal, bring something to drink if you want or a bag of chips, etc.

and GO ALONSO!!!!!!!!!! YEE HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

07 May – Well, That Wasn’t So Bad

Four races complete, flyaways done and the beginning of the European leg of the 2012 season is upon us. In six days time we will be in Barcelona, a track that typically will tell a team whether they have an all-around good car or an all-around bad car.

This is because the types of corners and turns that the teams will find on most of the other tracks they will visit throughout the season are just about all found on this one track. All always there are exceptions, but for the most part Cataluña is a good litmus test which is why in past years, when testing was allowed, all teams tested here and the majority of the testing took place here.

I have to say I have been a little surprised how the season has thus far panned out; I am in not in any way complaining about the results though! As I reflect back on the first four races, the reasons for these somewhat surprising results are pretty straightforward. No more blown diffuser so Red Bull is shit out of luck. McLaren has made some uncharacteristic mistakes, sorry Ron, I mean Martin. Ferrari got lucky with the weather and also had perfect pit-work, (and of course they have the most complete driver on the grid), and Mercedes has finally put it all together which in this day and age of Formula One is what it takes to win on Sunday.

And now we have 5 drivers all within 10 points of each other, super cool. And yes it is the usual suspects, in order: Vettel-53, Lewis-49, Webbo-48, Button-43, Fernando-43. As I said in a post at the end of last season, I always want Fernando to win but I know what makes the contest of racing so much more compelling is when there are more than two or three drivers in contention for each race win and for the championship and therefore unpredictable elements like tires, crashes, weather, penalties all come into play.

In this time between races the first in-season testing took place at Mugello in Italy. Although some team principals were suspect of the usefulness of the test, some teams used the test to full effect. Ferrari used this event to conducts tests on an updated F2012 chassis and to confirm the results in regards to correcting their cars’ issues. I am not sure where I read that the Ferrari mechanics were all smiles during the last two days of testing, but I am sure I read it somewhere. My point being that it looks like Ferrari have found some of the answers that previously have left them scratching their heads in pre-season testing. Well, we shall soon see!

As always, one never really knows how the cars are configured or what everyone is up to during testing. We will only really know on Saturday for out-right speed and Sunday for all-around performance, but the indication looks favorable for the guy in the red car.

Note to Ferrari: This is Fernando’s home GP, you better get those updates on the car, get those tires in the proper operating window, get the strategy right. You are the greatest racing marquee and it is time to remind everyone of that, especially Red Bull, just in case they have forgotten. Nothing would really get the European leg of the season underway better than a podium or a win. So bring it!

26 Mar – Take That Christian Horner!

Today’s post is going to be purely about the joy I am feeling due to the fact that the guy in the red car, despite all of its problems (and boy, there are some major problems), just won the grand prix of Malaysia!

First let me begin by saying if there is one thing that I have noticed watching Formula One for the last 20 years, it is this: Formula One is really a creature of habit. Most of the time the results of the teams, drivers, and so on are reasonably predictable. Right up to the point at which there is, say a crash that takes out the leading drivers, or in the case of weather, when it rains. Which is exactly what we had for the first half of this race.

Somehow (and I don’t think anyone could tell you why, even the engineers at Ferrari) the F2012 worked extremely well in the wet. It certainly doesn’t perform that well on a dry track so by some weird logic maybe it makes sense. On the wet Malaysia track, Fernando (he is just so good) was able to stay out of trouble, keep on pace with the leaders and due to some spot-on pit work by the team was able to get into first place. There was a serious threat from the Sauber of Sergio Perez as the track started to dry out, and he was definitely about to have a go at Fernando in the last seven minutes, that much is for sure. Whether he would have been able to pull the move/pass off you can never really be sure. It’s possible that Sergio might have out-braked himself while trying, which happens often with rookies, or he might have mis-judged a corner and collected Fernando so that both would have retired, we’ll never know. As it turned out Sergio came in too hot to turn 14 and over shot the apex (racing term for the center of a corner), losing about 5 seconds which was too much to recover from with only a few laps left and therefore settled for the second step of the podium, leaving Fernando on top.

So right now, I am on cloud nine. Fernando has a race win in only the second outing of 2012, and Ferrari and Fernando are leading the Drivers’ Championship by 5 points over Hamilton, which not even the most die-hard Fernando or Ferrari fan was predicting at this point in the season. Now there is a small break in the action and thankfully Vettel and Red Bull have not sorted out their exhaust issues yet because I just could not bear to see the finger over and over again (in replay, blogs, and print) for these next three weeks until the China GP.

I know this result and Fernando’s position in the Drivers’ Championship is not the true representation of how competitive Ferrari is right now, but a new (mostly new) chassis (car, for all you new to the F1 lingo) is on the way and for now I say to the Ferrari Nation and to Fernando fans around the world, “Lets just enjoy these next three weeks, lets take it all in, and lets get ready for a long season AND with no clear favorite yet, lets hope these 25 valuable points pay Fernando (and us) dividends come the end of the championship. GO ALONSO. YEE HA!!”

13 Mar – “Grit our teeth for now?”  WTF?

Well it has been quite some time since my last check in and I was hoping for something very different from one of the most celebrated, the most celebrated racing organizations in the history of Formula One.

“Grit our teeth for now” is not exactly the sentence I wanted to hear from what I consider the most talented driver on the grid. You might just as well say, “Hey JP, by the way we spent all winter changing our design philosophy and redesigning our car to create a winner right from the start, but instead decided that what we really wanted was to torture you, and all our fans into a possible hari-kari.” This surely is what I and most people that are fans of the guy with the big eyebrows are going to want to do at the end of the race on Sunday if Ferrari are stuck in the middle of the order as some are predicting.

I just can’t believe that for the third year in a row since Fernando has joined the team, and five in total since Kimi won the championship, Ferrari has not produced anything in the form of a competitive car. It really is staring to get boring, and I mean that in the most literal way. If this season ends up again as a Red Bull cheeseburger with some McLaren fries on the side (that’s an American thing for all you Europeans) yours truly is going to be a very cranky blogger. I might even have to find some more important aspects of Formula One to blog about like strategy, or tire wear, the aero development in the rear of the car, or the team politics, and how much fun is that really?

What I am really hoping for, what I really want from this new Formula One season that is about to go racing down under in Albert Park this weekend, is to watch some close qualifying (please, if there is a God or some other omnipotent being in the carbon fiber, rubber composites, oil and pistons Universe, let anybody but Vettel be on pole for Sunday), some great wheel to wheel racing (can’t really remember when that happened), maybe a couple of whip outs, some coming together with a teammate or another team’s mate (well at least both of those happened last year) and then in the end for Fernando to come across the finish line first–20 times in a row bitchess! Ha ha ha! Here’s hoping. Get it together Ferrari!

05 Nov – What Really Happened Between Turns 4 and 5: The Hamilton and Massa Affair

I’m compelled to write about the Hamilton/Massa incident this past Sunday at the Indian Grand Prix. First of all, I don’t think that either driver should have been handed a penalty. I think, and apparently Mark Webber agrees, that there are too many penalties in F1. The best racing is hard racing. Not to be confused with unfair racing. We all know the difference between the two. But the combination of fast cars, apexes and determined drivers is not always going to have a happy ending. I don’t think Lewis deserved a penalty when Kimi drove him off the road in Belgium a couple years ago. I don’t think Fernando deserved a penalty last year at Silverstone when Kubica’s Renault expired before he could give the position back (and by the way Kubica drove Fernando off the road as well). I think the penalties handed out for blocking during qualifying are bullshit. Small piece of track, clean line, time running out, everyone trying to do their best, there is bound to be a loser in that program.

Oh yeah, I do think the stewards did the right thing last year when Michael almost crashed Rubens off the road in Hungary. 10-place grid penalty for the next race. And oh yeah, I do think it was right to penalize Michael when he parked his car at Rasscasse a couple of years ago, back of the grid for you buddy. And oh yeah, I do think it was also the correct call at Jerez a couple of years before that. Really Michael did you think you could get away with that one again? Hey, does anyone else see a pattern here? Good thing I’m so fair in my assessments. Anyway, this is not the point I want to make. But there’s always time for a little Michael bashing on this blog. All in good fun, people.

Now on to the specifics of the incident on Sunday and all of the technical details and analysis that proves my point. For that, you’ll have to look at this other guy’s blog. Ha! But seriously, I highly recommend this piece on the BBC’s F1 website, authored by Mark Hughes, that addresses the Hamilton/Massa collision. Mark Hughes: Deconstructing Lewis Hamilton v Felipe Massa crash.
One of Hughes’s points is that the incident is not a further sign of Lewis’s lack of focus, which has been an obsession of many commentators all season. Hughes thinks just the opposite, that despite this coming together with Massa (for a sixth time this season), Lewis is on the mend.

But the best part about the piece is the manner in which Mr. Hughes breaks down how the coming together actually happened. He makes a very clear assessment of what was taking place on the track between the McLaren of Hamilton and the Ferrari of Massa, even going back to the previous lap to explain the set-up. His assessment illustrates how complex racing in this modern day has become. There’s a lot you can’t see on the TV and even if you’re a semi-expert (like me), you can only guess at many things. The difference in speed, the difference in downforce (who has more wing on the car) the different use of KERS, the selection of which racing line to use and lastly the view of each driver. Hughes goes on to talk about etiquette in racing, how it used to be, and the half-car rule and so forth and had the stewards taken some of this into consideration more than likely there would have been no penalty given.

I really appreciate and value Hughes’s type of insight. Which brings me, finally, to my point. Remember, this is supposed to be a blog from an “American’s point of view” which means I actually have to make a point of being an American and say something smart and relevant (which, I have to point out, is usually not considered too American, LOL). One of the reasons that Americans have a hard time with F1 and consequently tune it out or don’t tune in all is because we (Americans) don’t have exposure to this type of important information and analysis which completes the loop and allows us to really understand (in this case, why the crash happened) and get further educated about the fascinating intricacies of F1, which is what makes it so compelling. If you don’t have that information then the drivers just look lame. Why are they crashing those million-dollar vehicles? Why not just move over? Of course you can’t always know every “Why?” right away, but I think we could get a lot more answers in real time than we do.

As I’ve mentioned before, if you’re watching racing from the U.S., you are forced to get your F1 fix via the Speed channel. Steve Matchett is quite good at the tech side and the sporting regs, and David Hobbs is there to give insight from the driver point of view with the customary quip about the clag, and Bobby Varsha is there to be window dressing, (although in his defense he is probably not allowed to be any other way) but it really does leave one wanting quite a bit more.

By comparison, NASCAR, on the same channel, does a far better job in its breakdown and analysis. Although for the life of me I can’t see too many hillbillies coming to grips with all of the crazy information that is being delivered. But I guess if one had to talk for 4+ hrs (the average length of a NASCAR race) at some point you have to discuss every nut and bolt in a Chevy. Okay, okay, just kidding folks. NASCAR is a very technical formula and the drivers are super smart and extremely proficient at what they do and the fan base is equally as smart and passionate and well informed in regards to every aspect of these types of cars and this type of racing. Just like the fans of F1.

So lets review. If you love F1, but don’t quite know exactly what is going on, or even if you do, go read Mark Hughes’s article at the BBC F1 site. Also go read it if you can’t figure out why anybody watches racing, ever. It just might engage you. In fact there is excellent commentary all the time on BBC site. Secondly, Hamilton got rid of his girlfriend and is more focused and on the right track, no pun intended. Maybe he will ditch those silly earrings as well. Next, the hillbillies, despite the mullets, are super smart. And lastly, to the marshals, cut down on the unnecessary penalties and let those F1 drivers race, bitches…             jp

12 Oct – It Was Inevitable

Despite six wins from his competitors, there hasn’t been a mystery about this season’s outcome for some time. I am of course referring to Sebastian Vettel’s dominant season and subsequent retaining of his world champion status. As I have stated before, I like the guy with the big eyebrows in the red car and as any impassioned fan knows, when your guy or girl is not winning it is an absolute drag. I’m sure it is the same for the Hamilton fans, the Webber fans, the Michael fans, the Button fans, the whoever fans. Since the halfway mark, Sebastian’s peers have been very gracious in bestowing praise and kind words upon him, such as “he deserves to be world champion,” or “Vettel has done the best job so he absolutely deserves to be WC.” A look at Webber’s performance by comparison really makes the case for this point.

What is also true is that the RB7 is in a class of its own, really a car without any flaw and strong at all tracks, a testament to Adrian Newey’s design skill and getting it spot on, in addition to Vettel driving it to its full potential, which is what all true champions have in common.

However, knowing this does not make me feel any better, nor does it make it any easier to see Vettel on pole every Saturday, and on the top step of the podium every Sunday.

While I’m picking on Red Bull and Vettel, I’d like to point out that Ferrari also made them look better by building such a stinker this year. And McLaren also flailed by not re-tooling their car mid-season and fighting for the title like they usually do.

And, yes, I’m tired of the Vettel finger as well (although I am all for the drivers having personality and showboating when they win) and nothing can address my nausea every time I hear Christian Horner on the radio saying something boring like “Seb you’re the best, well done mate.”

OK, alright, I’m done, enough of the poor sportsmanship.  Congratulations to Red Bull and Vettel, to win both championships (driver’s and constructor’s) in the same year is one thing but to repeat is definitely something else entirely. Ask anyone in any sports endeavor, to repeat is always more difficult. Just continuing the combination that is the winning formula is no guarantee for success. Ask the Lakers, the New England Patriots, the San Francisco Giants, these are all American sports teams that have been champions one year and in the basement the next. Ask any actor or director on a franchise movie series. If this was December 2012 I’d say, just ask Obama how hard it is to repeat. Not saying he won’t be re-elected, but it is going to be a really tough campaign.

The point being, Red Bull did an outstanding job in year #2. And Vettel, I have to admit, he is super fast, he made almost no mistakes when it counted and his pass on Fernando in Italy was one to remember. He is the real deal. But I still don’t like it.

Thinking about this a little more deeply, I think it is partly because for some time now the F1 title has come down to the very end of the season for the last 4 or 5 years, going back to Fernando’s second championship against Michael in ’06.  Even Button’s title-winning year wasn’t a sure thing as I recall.  It’s obviously much more fun for everyone when every race counts in the championship. Right now we have three lame-duck races on the calendar before we can put this season behind us.

But to be absolutely hypocritical, next year I would like nothing more than for Fernando and Ferrari to clean everybody’s clock starting with Red Bull and Vettel and win every single race. How much fun will that be for the entire F1 fan base and competitors? Can you say, “Zero!”? (Or as the English say “Nought!”) This is the funny thing about being a fan and herein lies a great contradiction, we want the person or team that we follow to always and I mean always win, but secretly we all know the best seasons and races, games, series, championships, are the ones that are close and go down to the final lap, possession, pass, pitch, shot, minute, second, buzzer. We still have some mystery coming up with the race at a brand new track in India and I will still be pushing for Ferrari and Fernando to win the last three races, or at the very least hope that Button, Webber, anyone can challenge Vettel for the race win, but I am now already looking ahead to 2012. I’m ready for a better car from Ferrari, a better car from McLaren, better racing right from the first lap in Australia and for some fierce competition even if I might say that I want Fernando on the top step times 20.  Hee hee…